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THE 



POETRY OF THE ORIENT. 



BY 



WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER. 



What precious things I found in Oriental lands, 
Returning home, I brought them in my votive hands. 




BOSTON: 
ROBERTS BROTHERS 

1866. 



& 






N 



<h 



b 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by 

WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



4 

QSfel 

IN 5 l«07 



University Press: 

Welch, Bigelow, and Company, 

Cambridge. 



cdfe 



TO 

/ 
THE DEAR AND PURE MEMORY 
OF MY DEAD BOY, 

HENRY LODGE ALGER, 

WHO LOVED MANY THINGS IN THIS BOOK, 
I NOW DEDICATE IT. 



PREFACE 



The whole field of Oriental literature, so far as ac- 
cessible through English, Latin, German, and French 
translations, has long been with me a favorite province 
for excursions in such leisure hours as I could com- 
mand. And during that time I have been in the 
habit of versifying the brief passages which struck 
me most forcibly. From the enjoyment these pecu- 
liar fragments of meditation and imagery gave me, — 
from the conviction that others too would enjoy them, 
— from the difficulty of finding them where they now 
lie, dispersed and buried amidst repelling masses of 
dry detail, — and from the expressed desire of several 
friends, — arose the resolve to venture the present 
publication. 

There seems to me also a striking propriety, and 
the promise of profit, in bringing to the acquaintance 
of Americans the most marked mental peculiarities of 
the Orientals. Must not a spiritual contact between 
the enterprising young West and the meditative old 



VI PREFACE. 

East be a source of uncommon stimulus and culture ? 
It is a noble ambition to desire to master all the 
varieties of lawful human experience ; and Oriental 
poetry offers to our attention fields of thought, modes 
of feeling, styles of imagination, the most impressively 
unlike our own. Whoever, born and nurtured in the 
midst of Western civilization, wishes to understand 
the whole of human nature and the whole of human 
consciousness, especially in its more ideal depart- 
ments, w T ill nowhere else find so much instruction 
and excitement as in the province to which the pres- 
ent work essays to introduce him. 

Many persons seem to think that this region — 
the poetic literature of the East — is fitted to yield 
only a barren crop of verbiage, or a tawdry mass of 
sentimental extravagance. It often has these charac- 
teristics. It also possesses all kinds of wealth, in 
their most exalted degrees, and in their most wonder- 
ful profusion. The poetry of the unimaginative Chi- 
nese is noticeable for ethical good sense, — a wholesome 
vein of homely truth. Its beat is circumscribed to 
the ranges of practical experience, neither plunging to 
metaphysical depths, nor soaring to rapturous heights. 
The Muse of China is a ground-sparrow. With the 
Arabs passion is carried to its most fiery ecstasies, its 
most tenacious lengths. Their ideas seem to be trans- 
muted into sensations, rather than their sensations to 



PREFACE. VU 

be represented in ideas. Imagination itself is heated, 
vascular, vibrating with the blood. Sanscrit and Hin- 
dostanee poetry is characterized, in its most peculiar 
phases, by an unrivalled idealization. Imagination 
often takes the reins from judgment, and runs riot, 
and language breaks into a blossoming wilderness of 
metaphor. But the richness and originality of the 
result in ideas and emotions, as well as in imagery, 
are frequently grand and exhilarating. The most 
distinctive Persian poetry exhibits an exquisite deli- 
cacy of sense elsewhere unparalleled, a vast and ethe- 
real play of fancy and sentiment, a fetterless jubilancy 
of reason and faith, the very transcendentalism of wit. 
All seems strained through the imagination, deprived 
of grossness, held in solution, ready to dart in electric 
freedom. The dying Sufi, Mewlana Riimi, says, in 
anticipation of his funeral, to the friends weeping 
around him : — 
" While your dim eyes but see, through the haze of earth's 



My frame doomed to mix with the mouldering clod, 
I am treading the courts of the seventh heaven in gladness, 
And basking unveiled in the vision of God." 

Where has the divine lesson, " Bless them that 
injure you," been more charmingly rendered than 
in the following lines from Hafiz, translated by Sir 
William Jones ? 



Vlll PREFACE. 

" Learn from yon Orient shell to love thy foe, 
And store with pearls the hand that brings thee woe : 
Free, like yon rock, from base vindictive pride, 
Imblaze with gems the wrist that tears thy side ; 
Mark where yon tree rewards the stony shower 
With fruit nectareous or balmy flower. 
All nature calls aloud, ' Shall man do less 
Than heal the smiter, and the railer bless ? ' " 

The substance of many of the pieces in the ensuing 
pages, from the great Eastern authors, will be found 
most surprising. Some pieces will be found merely 
odd, quaint, grotesque, or bizarre ; some are unques- 
tionably trivial ; but nearly all, it is hoped, possess, 
for one reason or other, some peculiarity which lends 
them a justifying interest, if not value. There is a 
naivete in the mythological rhetoric of the old Hindu 
bards mentally provocative in a singular degree. 
What a glimpse into the pre-historic state and habits 
of man, in the primeval Aryan world, is opened, 
when we find, in the Rig Veda, the clouds called 
cows, the winds calves, and the rain milk ! The cow 
bellows for her calf; that is, the thunder-cloud roars 
for the wind to draw the rain from its breast ! 
Again, the colors of the spectrum are seven sisters 
riding together in the chariot of the year, drawn by 
seven horses. The axle of the chariot is never heated, 
the nave never worn ; its journeying damages not the 



PREFACE. IX 

four quarters of the horizon ; the team never sweats 
nor snorts, and is unsullied by dust ! 

The form, also, of Eastern poetry is in many cases 
very peculiar. The ghazel consists usually of not less 
than five, or more than fifteen couplets, all with the 
same rhyme. Here is an imperfect one, translated 
by Vans Kennedy. In perusing it the reader must 
know that " cell," in the Sufi dialect, means chapel ; 
" pagans," priests' ; " wine," Divine love. 

" The shade that cypress here bestows, to me 's enough. 
The joy that from the goblet flows, to me 's enough. 
The cell where pagans wine expose, to me 's enough. 
The sign how swift each moment goes, to me 's enough. 
If not to you, the joy it shows to me 's enough. 
The bliss her converse fond bestows, to me 's enough. 
Love sweeter far than angel knows, to me 's enough. 
A guileless heart, with verse that glows, to me 's enough." 

A divan is a body of ghazels arranged in alpha- 
betical order, according to their isocatalectic letters. 

The larger proportion of the specimens given here 
are faithful representations of Hindu, Persian, and 
Arab thoughts, sentiments, and fancies, which I have 
met with in the voluminous records of the different 
Asiatic Societies, in prose versions from the Vedas 
and Puranas, and in a thousand scattered sources. 
Of the rest, the originating hint and impulse alone, 
or merely the character and style, are Oriental. 



X PREFACE. 

I have prefixed to each piece which is strictly a 
translation the name o!" the original author, whenever 
it was known to me. The specimens derived through 
the German of Herder and of Riickert I am com- 
pelled to leave anonymous, as no clew is given to 
the authors from whom they were derived. I have 
affixed the letter H. to those drawn from Herder, the 
letter R. to those drawn from Riickert. All the 
pieces remaining, in addition to those now designated, 
are to be ascribed, under the conditions before stated, 
to the present writer. 

With small pretensions, with fervid interest in the 
subject, this humble offering, brought from the altar 
of the Oriental Muses, and laid on the shrine of 
American Literature, is commended to the kind notice 
of those whose curiosity or sympathy responds to the 
fascination of Eastern gorgeousness, reverie, and pas- 
sion. 

An edition of this work, numbering sixteen hundred 
copies, was published in 1856. It is now. out of print. 
The present edition is enlarged by considerable new 
introductory matter, and by over a hundred additional 
specimens ; also, by an Appendix consisting of poems 
not of an Oriental character. 

Boston, March, 1865. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

PAGE 

Pnrposes of this Essay, 3 

Desirableness of such a Work, 4 

Range and Variety of Eastern Poetry, .... 4 

Alliterations ; Puns ; Ingenious Compositions in Geometrical 

Shapes, 5 

Immense Amount of Eastern Poetry, . . . . .7 
English Translations from the Eastern Tongues, . .8-10 

Southey and Moore, 11 

French Translations from the Eastern Tongues, . . 12 
German Translations from the Eastern Tongues, . . .13 
Mirtsa Schafiy, a Living Persian Poet, . . . . 15 

Goethe's West-Oestlicher Divan, 16 

Oriental Metrical Eorms, . . . . . 16 

Comparison of Eastern and Western Poetry, . . 17-21 

Peculiarities of Eastern Literature, 22 

Chinese Poetry, | . 23, 24 

Hebrew Poetry, . ... . . . . . 25 

Dr. Noyes's Translations, 26 

The distinctive Hindu, Persian, Arab, and Sufi Muses, . 27 

The Hindu Drama, 28 

The Ramayana, Valmiki's Epic, 29 

Episode of Ravana and Sita, . . . . 30 - 36 

The MahabMrata, Vyasa's Epic, 37 

The Close op the Mahabharata, . . .38-44 

Arabian Poetry, 45 

Freiligrath's Picture op the Desert, . . .46-49 
Sceneiy and Life of Arabia, . . • . . 50 
The Spirit-Caravan, 50-53 



Xll CONTENTS. 

The Arabian Maiden, Horse, and Palm, .... 53 

Persian Poetry, 54 

The Shah Nameh of Firdousi, . . . . 55 

Firdousi's Terrible Satire on Mahmoud, . . . .56 
Bewildering Luxury of Persian Lyrics, . . . . 57, 58 
Jemschid's Cup, Solomon's Ring, Iskander's Mirror, . . 59 
The Three Pairs of Persian Lovers, . . . 60 

Episode of Ferhad in Nisami's Khosru and Shireen, . .61 
The Five Allegories of Hapless Love, .... 62 

The Sect of Sufis, 63 

Their Quietistic Enthusiasm, 64 

The Successful Search, a Sufi Poem, . . . .64 

The Three Stages of Piety, 66 

Mewlana Dschelaleddin Rumi, 66 

Inwardness of Sufism, 67 

The Religion of the Heart, 68 

Sufistic Optimism, . . 69 

Death the Entrance to Ecstasy, . . . . . .70 

Characteristics of Oriental Poetry. 

1. Freedom of Imagination, 71 

2. Copiousness of Comparison, 72 

3. The Apologue, 73 

The Caliph and Satan, . . . . 74-77 

4. Paradoxical Figures, 78 

5. Bacchic and Erotic Imagery, . . . . . 79 

6. Metaphysical and Imaginative Mysticism, . . .80 

Distinction between Sentimentalist and Mystic, . 80 
The Contents of Piety, 81 

7. Pantheism, 82 

8. Profound Feeling of Worldly Evanescence, . . 83-85 

The Eastern Poet a Preacher, 86-88 

The Festival, 89-91 

Apologetic Justification of the Present Work, ... 92 



Metrical Specimens, 93-316 

Pieces not derived from Oriental Sources or 

Suggestions, 317-337 



AN INTRODUCTION 



TO 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 



HISTORICAL DISSERTATION. 



The three aims of this essay are, to convey to the 
reader some conception of the vast contents of the im- 
perial treasure-house of Oriental poetry; to present a 
brief sketch of the labors of modern scholars towards 
bringing this unique literature to the acquaintance of 
the Occidental world ; and to give an illustrative analy- 
sis of the distinguishing characteristics of Arab, Hindu, 
Persian, and Sufi poems. I am aware that I shall ac- 
complish these objects imperfectly, because my knowl- 
edge of the original materials has been obtained through 
translations, and because the narrow limits within which 
the exposition must be confined will not allow a full 
detail even of the facts and illustrations actually in my 
hands. Still I hope not to be charged with presumption, 
and ruled out of the literary court as an incompetent 
intruder, however incommensurate my performance 
may be with the theme ; and would suggest, in depre- 
cation of censure, that the present work, inadequate as 
it is, will yet meet a real want, and perhaps lead to 
worthier productions. Those who feel curiosity on the 
subject will gladly own, that even the meagre outline of 



4 INTRODUCTION TO 

the Eastern Muse given here is better than nothing. 
It comes into a vacant place where many are looking, 
and therefore may be welcomed, although it very in- 
completely fills that place. Thousands desire to know 
more than they can learn, from means at hand, of 
that wondrous harvest of Oriental thought, sentiment, 
and fancy, from which scattered blades, fragmentary 
grains, stray blossoms, are occasionally reaching them : 
and while the great scholars, the front reapers in this 
field, do not drive their loaded wains to our Western 
mart, the humble gleaner may not be stigmatized as 
immodest if he brings forward a small sheaf of speci- 
mens. Of course, at the best, it must be extremely 
inadequate ; for, as Dschelaleddin says, 

A flower-branch of the garden one brings to the town, 
But brings not the whole garden of flowers to the town. 

Oriental poetry includes a much more varied range 
of subjects than Occidental. A large portion of the re- 
ligious, metaphysical, geographical, philological, histori- 
cal, and mathematical treatises of the East are written 
in measure and rhyme. " The ancient laws of the race 
were framed in verse, and sung into authority as the 
carmen necessarium of the state." The children's school- 
books, from Mecca to Borneo, from Bagdad to Pekin, 
are almost invariably composed in poetic form. A sort 
of catechism, said to be universally used in the Chinese 
seminaries of instruction, commences thus : — 

All men at birth are good alike at root, 
But afterwards they differ much in fruit. 

Wilford ascribes to Vikramaditya, the powerful mon- 
arch at whose court Kalidasa flourished, a work on 



ORIENTAL POETRY. O 

Geography, which is still extant in manuscript, in 
twenty thousand slokas. There seems to be a power- 
ful propensity in the whole Eastern mind to a measured, 
musical utterance filled with recurring sounds. And so, 
in one rhetorical form it sets forth the subject-matter of 
speculation and science, observation and fancy, alike, 
from the attenuated theses of Buddha's abysmal philos- 
ophy, to the Poor Richard maxims of the Confucian 
sages ; from the prayers to Agni, god of fire, in the 
oldest Indian Veda, to the dry etymological disquisitions 
in the latest Arabic grammar. Even their prose, as is 
remarkably shown in the Koran, is thickly interspersed 
with rhymes, balanced clauses, and pairs of jingling 
names. Instead of Cain and Abel, the Arabs say 
Abel and Kabel. 

A noticeable feature in Eastern poetry is the quirks, 
conceits, puns, alliterations, with which much of it 
abounds. Many of these are wrought up in forms of 
such exceeding difficulty, that their elaboration must 
have cost immense pains, as well as ingenuity. The 
construction and solution of riddles is a favorite exer- 
cise with them. These patient authors have composed 
acrostics, whose lines read the same forwards, back- 
wards, upwards and downwards, at each end, and through 
the centre. They have written poems in lines of dif- 
ferent lengths, and so arranged as to constitute the 
shapes of drums, crosses, circles, swords, trees. The 
Alexandrian rhetoricians afterwards amused themselves 
in a similar manner, — writing cutting satires and pier- 
cing invectives in the form of an axe or a spear. The 
Christian monks of the Middle Age also did the 
same thing ; composing, for instance, hymns in the form 



6 INTRODUCTION TO 

of the cross. I have seen an erotic triplet composed 
by a Hindu poet, the first line representing a bow, the 
second its string, the third an arrow aimed at the heart 
of the object of his passion. 



I 

o 

2 

2 



^w 



*fi 



a, 
the fairest 
o 



& ■§ <* 

^ •- >, 

Those charms to win, with all my empire I would gladly part. 

Some account of these curiosities is furnished by 
Yates's paper, in the twentieth volume of the Asiatic 
Researches, on " Sanscrit Alliteration." If the compar- 
ative degree of our adjective " great " were spelt in the 
same way as the familiar instrument for rubbing nut- 
megs, the following lines would represent the equiva- 
lent of a satirical pun by an Indian bard : — 

Thy voice's melody than any man's is greater ; 

It tears my ear as would the scratching of a grater. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 7 

But perhaps the most remarkable example of literary 
ingenuity the world can afford is those Sanscrit poems 
wherein all the words have a double sense, — as our 
word " churn " may be read either as a noun or as a verb, 
— so that two propositions are enounced, or two nar- 
ratives related, at once, in the same words. It would be 
hard to exemplify this with much success, or at much 
length, in English. But an approximate illustration 
may be obtained if we suppose all the corresponding 
words in the two following lines to be spelt alike while 
retaining their respective significations : — 

The even belle thus told when the day's red course was all 

so dun ; 
The even bell thus tolled when the Dey's dread corse was also 

done. 
The former line would mean, The undisturbed beauty 
narrated some incident when the bright path of the sun 
had grown entirely brown in twilight ; the latter, The 
vesper-bell was pealing a funeral chime in a certain 
manner when the awe-inspiring form of the dead ruler 
of Algiers was likewise ready for burial ; — while, alike 
to ear and eye, the words would be in both cases identi- 
cally the same. 

But aside from these rhymed text-books and techni- 
cal artifices, the literature of the Orient is astonishingly 
rich in poetry, properly so called. The names of poets 
renowned throughout those strange and crowded climes 
are to be reckoned literally by the thousand. It is 
thought that Persia alone has produced more than 
twenty-five thousand. Poems of boundless diversity 
of subject and character, possessing peculiar merits of a 
superior order, fill volumes amounting to hundreds on 



8 INTRODUCTION TO 

hundreds. This prodigious realm of reflection and 
imagination, of feeling and art, remained, until within 
less than three quarters of a century, a terra incog- 
nita^ a world shut up from us. Even now few persons 
know anything more of its extent and qualities than can 
be gathered from the little fragments occasionally found 
in the corners of magazines and newspapers. The 
present general ignorance is no longer a necessity. 
Materials enough have been imported into the modern 
tongues, by scholars who have come freighted back from 
voyaging over the sea of Eastern languages, to afford 
quite an extensive acquaintance with this whole prov- 
ince ; though those materials are dispersed in numerous 
channels, not popularly known and often not readily ac- 
cessible. A slight account, therefore, of what has been 
done in this direction, by the English, the French, and 
the Germans, may be of use. 

Sir William Jones was the Vasco de Gama who first 
piloted the thought of Europe to these Oriental shores. 
It was on one of his earliest expeditions into Sanscrit- 
land, that the divining-rod of his sensitive genius, flut- 
tering in response to an irresistible attraction towards 
the veiled and unimaginable mines of Indian poetry, 
fastened at last, by magnetic instinct, upon Sakuntala, 
the master-piece of Kalidasa, the happiest production of 
the Hindu drama, the " As You Like It " of the East- 
ern Shakespeare. The publication by him of this beau- 
tiful play, also of some miscellaneous Persian odes, and 
Brahminic hymns, and of his famous pioneer essay on 
the " Poetry of the Eastern Nations," attracted the 
attention, and stimulated the labors, of many scholars, 
both in Great Britain and on the Continent, and led to 



ORIENTAL POETRY. U 

extensive consequences. He was the first President of 
the Royal Asiatic Society, which, by its roots at home 
and its branches abroad, has since done so much to 
fructify our Western literature with Oriental sap and 
grafts. Scattered notices and fragments in the numer- 
ous volumes of the " Asiatic Researches," and of the 
" Asiatic Journal," furnish a great variety of translated 
specimens of the poetry of the East, and a valuable 
fund of general information on the whole subject. 
Wilkins early published a prose version of the Bhagvat 
Gita, a long metaphysical episode from the stupendous 
Indian epic ; of which also a new translation by Thomp- 
son has just issued from the press. Milman has given 
us, in most faithful and felicitous verse, another episode 
from that vast and ancient poem, namely, the story of 
Nala and Damayanta, a tale of the rarest interest, 
sweetness, and simplicity. Professor H. H. Wilson, the 
distinguished President of the Royal Asiatic Society of 
England, whose profound lore and magnificent pub- 
lished achievements have long since won for him the 
admiring reverence of scholars throughout the world, 
gave the public, twenty years since, three volumes of 
Hindu Plays. He has also printed a few small poems 
from the Sanscrit, together with a happy metrical 
version of Kalidasa's " Megha-Duta, or Cloud-Messen- 
ger." The title of the latter production partly indicates 
its subject, which is the story of a Yaksha, or mountain 
demigod, who loves, and marries an Apsarasa, or 
heavenly nymph, and resides with her in the celestial 
regions. But having offended Indra, he is banished 
from her to the earth. Disconsolate and pining, he 
stands on a lofty peak, gazmg towards his lost paradise. 



10 INTRODUCTION TO 

A cloud floats over him in the direction of the home of 
the Apsarasas. He sends a message by it to his be- 
loved spouse : and so the plot proceeds to the desired 
sequel. 

There is a volume of " Specimens of Old Indian 
Poetry " by Griffiths ; he has also translated Kalidasa's 
" Birth of the War-God." Eastwick has presented us 
with a beautiful prose version of the Prem Sagar, or 
" The Ocean of Love," a history of Krishna, recounting 
the adventures of Vishnu during his incarnation as a cow- 
herd-boy in the meadows of Gopala. A most curious 
allegorical drama, called " The Rising of the Moon of 
Intellect," likewise exists in an English dress by Dr. 
Taylor. The Gulistan or " Rose-Garden " of Saadi has 
appeared successively in the English versions of Glad- 
win, Dumoulin, Ross, and Eastwick. Gladwin trans- 
lated, in addition, Saadi's Pund-Nameh or " Compen- 
dium of Ethics " ; and a philological poem entitled " Re- 
semblance Linear and Verbal." Firdousi's Shah-Nameh, 
the great Iranian epic, has been admirably brought into 
our tongue, in a form of mingled prose and verse, by 
Atkinson. Episodes from this famous " Book of Heroes " 
had been previously rendered by Champion, Weston, and 
Robertson. Selections of the lyrics of Hafiz were pub- 
lished in English verse successively by Richardson, Nott, 
and Hindley. Professor Falconer has enriched our 
literature with a small volume of characteristic and ex- 
quisite odes and fragments from the Persian. "The 
Rose-Garden of Persia," 'a volume by Miss Costello, 
contains a large collection of interesting metrical pieces 
from different Persian bards. Milnes has embodied a 
few delightful specimens ofT)riental thought in his book 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 11 

of " Palm Leaves." And in Trench's " Poems from 
Eastern Sources " are many which possess remarkable 
beauty, truth, and power. Several pieces in Bayard 
Taylor's " Poems of the Orient " scarcely fall below any 
in our language as representative expressions of the real 
passion, imagery, and form of the Eastern Muse. The 
fifty-fourth volume of the Westminster Review has a 
good notice of Preston's translation of the great Ara- 
bian poem, the Makamat of Hariri. A hundred years 
ago Professor Chappelow published Tograi, or " The. 
Traveller," an Arabic poem. There is, too, a volume 
by Professor Carlyle, entitled " Specimens of Arabian 
Poetry, from the Earliest Time to the Extinction of 
the Khaliphat." 

Southey excited interest in the myths of India by 
"Thalaba" and "The Curse of Kehama," — justly 
among the most popular of his publications. Their my- 
thology and their descriptions of natural scenery are 
quite true to the Hindu belief and clime ; but as poetry 
they are utterly remote from all the native tones of the 
Sanscrit lyre. Moore's famous and favorite tale of Lalla 
Rookh is far more successful, every way, in reproducing 
the breath and raiment of Asiatic poesy. The Moslem 
and Gheber traditions and associations, the current im- 
agery, local form and color of the Orient, are here pre- 
served and wrought up by a fancy wholly Persian in its 
revelling profuseness and felicity. Not the very genius 
itself of Iran's own soil can outvie, in exhaustless wealth 
of splendors and sweets, the cloying witchery of beauty 
and melody that crowds the pages of the Irish bard's 
" Lalla Rookh," and of his " Loves of the Angels." 
The lines dissolve in voluptuous languor of music; 



12 INTRODUCTION TO 

Oriental superstitions impregnate the thoughts ; and as 
we read, or listen, visions of snowy Peris, red wine- 
fountains in gushing spouts, porphyry palaces, golden 
domes, and birds of Paradise, float before us, and a 
breeze laden with perfumes from " the gardens of Gul 
in their bloom " is wafted to our nostrils. 

At the beginning of this century, Samuel Rousseau 
published " Flowers of Persian Poetry." A work, too, 
of a good deal of interest, is Broughton's "Popular 
Poetry of the Hindoos." More recently Eastwick has 
given us a fine translation of " The Anvari Suhaili," 
the Persian version of the Fables of Pilpay. Professor 
Williams has printed an admirable lecture on " Indian 
Epic Poetry," followed by an analysis of the Eama- 
yana, and a summary of .the Mahabharata, full and 
exceedingly instructive. And we owe to Max Midler 
a " History of Sanscrit Literature." 

A glance into the Oriental section of French bibliog- 
raphy will show that the eager scholars of that most 
intellectual nation have largely cultivated this branch 
of literature. I shall mention only a few of the more 
conspicuous works. The Bhagavat Purana, or Poetic 
History of Krishna, was published at Paris in 1840, in 
three gigantic folios, in arch-royal style, the Sanscrit 
on one page, and a translation by Burnouf on the 
other. It is a vast repertory of adventures, imagery, 
hymns, metaphysics, and mythology. The History 
of Hindu' and Hindostanee Literature by Garcin de 
Tassy includes a copious anthology. Tassy is the 
translator of " The Adventures of Kamrup," an East- 
ern Ulysses, — a poem of enormous bulk, and teeming 
with the peculiarities of the Hindu mind. He has also 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 13 

translated and edited " The Popular Songs of India, Re- 
ligious, Erotic, National " ; and he has published a unique 
little treatise on " The Female Poets of India." Under 
the names of De Sacy, Langlois, Fauche, and Chezy, in 
the last volume of Zenker's " Bibliotheca Orientalis," the 
reader will find such further notices as he may desire. 

The Germans have transplanted much more exten- 
sively than the English or the French from this wide 
and winsome field. More than a score of her heroic 
scholars, toiling devotedly in this long-neglected depart- 
ment, have enriched the mother tongue of Germany 
with copious contributions of choice-culled flowers from 
the Eastern Muses, and made the names of Valmiki, 
Vyasa, and Kalidasa, Firdousi, Hafiz, and Saadi, well- 
nigh as familiar on the banks of the Rhine and beneath 
the lindens of Vienna, as they are along the shores of 
the Ganges and amidst the kiosks of Shiraz. Large 
portions of the two great cycles of Indian epic poetry 
have been brought into their own vernacular by the 
Schlegels, by Holtzmann, by Wilmans, and by Bopp. 
The elder Humboldt also published an important crit- 
ical essay on this subject, which attracted much atten- 
tion at the time. An entire version of Firdousi has 
appeared in German, by Schack, besides various por- 
tions of his work rendered by different hands. Tholuck 
translated and edited a " Collection of Fragments from 
Oriental Mysticism," comprising many gems of rare 
light and wonderful setting. Herder early became 
quite a proficient in this province of world-literature, 
and his works contain an extremely large number of 
short, select pieces of Hindu wit, wisdom, and imagina- 
tion. Rosenzweig printed three volumes of important 



14 . INTRODUCTION TO 

Persian poems by different authors of eminence. Jo- 
seph von Hammer, known later as Hammer Purgstall, 
has given to the press — besides a Turkish romantic 
poem by Fasli, called " The Rose and the Nightingale," 
and a volume of precious " Fragments by an Unknown 
Persian poet," and " The Divan of Baki," the greatest 
Turkish lyrist, and Schebisteri's " Rose-Field of Mys- 
tery," and the works of Motanebbi, the greatest Arabic 
poet — a history of Arabic literature, in seven huge 
volumes, describing the. works often thousand authors; 
a history of Persian poetry, with extracts from two 
hundred celebrated poets ; and a voluminous history of 
Turkish poetry, with extracts from twenty-two hundred 
poets. Hammer Purgstall's contributions are unrivalled 
in quantity, and in quality their merits are very high, 
notwithstanding the somewhat damaging assaults upon 
his philological pretensions by Von Diez, Fleischer, and 
Weil. Riickert likewise has added greatly to the wealth 
of German literature by his innumerable translations 
from various Oriental tongues, — translations which, 
for literal and metrical closeness to their originals, and 
for singular felicity and fire, hold supreme rank. His 
versions of short poems are countless. His chief works 
are " Hamasa," fifteen hundred of the oldest Arabic bal- 
lads, collected by Abu Tamman ; " Metamorphoses of 
Abu-Seid"; "Wisdom of a Brahmin"; "Contemplation 
and Edification from the East " ; " Brahminical Tales." 
There is a fine rhymed version of the best lyrics of 
Hafiz by Daumer. A vast mass of valuable examples 
of Oriental poetry — reflection, fancy, feeling, meta- 
phor, and description — has been deposited in German 
speech by the hands of Hartmann, Kosegarten, Arnold, 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 15 

Platen, Hoefer, Wolff, Graf, Bohlen, Peiper, Ewald, 
Miiiler, and Heine. The titles of their works may be 
found under their names in the Oriental sections of the 
various German bibliographies. Two splendid volumes 
of Persian poems, " The Fruit-Garden of Saadi," and the 
Fragments of Ibn Jemin, translated by a learned Ger- 
man lady, Ottokar Maria, were published at Vienna 
three years since. And a version, by Dursch, of a San- 
scrit poem, called "The Shattered Goblet," has just 
appeared in thin quarto form. Bodenstedt not long 
ago published a charming little volume of the " Songs of 
Mirtsa Schaffy," a living poet, under whose instruction 
the translator studied Persian literature, at Tiflis. In 
1850 Bodenstedt issued an account of his travels in the 
East, of his studies with Mirtsa Schaffy, and his obser- 
vations of Asiatic character and life. It is called " A 
Thousand and One Days in the Orient," and is one of 
the most charming books of the kind ever written. 
Especially entertaining and peculiar are the details 
given in it of the mutual criticisms and squibs which 
passed between Mirtsa Schaffy and Mirtsa Jussuf, 
who were rival teachers of Persian at Tiflis, and both 
of whom were anxious to secure the patronage of the 
young student from the West. Dr. Jolowicz also 
has recently issued a noticeable collection of well- 
chosen specimens of the best poetry of twenty East- 
ern nations, executed by a large number of distin- 
guished persons, and constituting a great quarto of six 
hundred and fifty pages, called " Polyglot of Oriental 
Poetry." 

In this hasty survey the name of Goethe should not be 
omitted ; for he has done much to acquaint the Western 



16 INTRODUCTION TO 

world with some peculiar traits of the poetry of the East. 
His " "West-Oestlicher Divan " is a series, not of transla- 
tions, but of original poems, written by him, in the spirit 
and method of the East, after he was past sixty years of 
age. Milnes, certainly a competent judge, says of this 
work : "Any one who has made it the companion of his 
Eastern tour will acknowledge the wonderful success 
of the experiment, and feel more strongly than ever the 
genius of that consummate artist, to whom all faiths and 
feelings, all times and events, seem to have ministered, 
as certain of being well understood and rightly used as 
if their master had been Nature itself. He will feel how 
truly Riickert, in his ' Eastern Roses,' has sung : — 

' Would you feast on purest East, 
You must ask it of the selfsame man 
Who the best has served the West 
With such vintage as none other can.' " 

The metrical literature of the Oriental languages 
admits far more freedom and variety of movement and 
measure than our own. The laws of versification es- 
tablished by the Indian bards include three distinct 
methods of measure ; that which is determined by time 
alone, that which reckons merely by syllables, that 
which is divided entirely by feet. And then all possi- 
ble combinations of the foregoing methods of rhythm 
are allowed, and the actual diversity of metre amounts 
literally to many thousands. This interesting point is 
elaborately explained by Colebrooke in a long paper on 
" Sanscrit and Pracrit Poetry," in the tenth volume of 
the Asiatic Researches. The oldest, simplest, most 
commonly adopted measure is the Sloka, — a sixteen- 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 17 

syllable line divided at the eighth syllable. There is 
a class of poems, called Ghazels, comprising a large 
part of the lyrics of the East. Its law is that the first 
two lines rhyme, and for this rhyme a new one must be 
found in the second line of each succeeding couplet, the 
alternate line being free. These poems sometimes con- 
tain forty or fifty couplets. Here is a brief specimen 
of the Ghazel from Trench's Eastern poems. 

THE WOKLD'S UNAPPKECIATION. 

" What is the good man and the wise ? 
Ofttirnes a pearl which none doth prize ; 
Or jewel rare, which men account 
A common pebble, and despise. 
Set forth upon the world's bazaar, 
It mildly gleams, but no one buys, 
Till it in anger Heaven withdraws 
From the world's undiscerning eyes : 
And in its shell the pearl again, 
And in its mine the jewel, lies." 

But let us pass from form to life and substance. It is 
unfair and misleading to say, with indiscriminate univer- 
sality, that Oriental poetry is thus, Western poetry so ; 
because, among the immense treasures of Eastern litera- 
ture, gathered by its native bards during so many gen- 
erations, there is almost every conceivable variety of 
subject and treatment, marked by almost every possible 
mode and degree of thought, imagery, and emotion. 
Eastern writing is not, as many seem to think, all com- 
pact of foolish hyperbole, petty conceit, and mystic jug- 
glery. It is not all, as many of the specimens most 



18 INTRODUCTION TO 

circulated might lead us to imagine, in the strain of 
" He lifted his head from the collar of reflection, drew 
aside the veil of silence, and strewed the pearls of his 
speech to the bewildering delight of his auditors." In 
its different departments, though it is indeed often 
characterized by this childish profusion of weak and 
huddled metaphors, it yet possesses narrators as graph- 
ic in precision and directness as Homer ; elegiasts as 
touching in clean simplicity jof conception and thought- 
ful pathos of phrase as Simonides ; epigrammatists not 
a whit inferior in brevity, point, and beauty to Callima- 
chus ; humorists whose sketches and colors are as ad- 
mirable as the most genial of Sterne's ; satirists whose 
lines are as sharp-edged as the most cutting of Swift's ; 
ethical and descriptive poets whose hortatory appeals, 
and pictures of nature and life, will not suifer by com- 
parison with similar productions by European authors of 
the most respectable rank at the present time ; thinkers 
as profound as Plato, as subtile as Fichte ; in whose 
speculations lie the germs, and many of the develop- 
ments, of every philosophical theory now known, from 
Spinoza's to Locke's, from Berkeley's to Hegel's. The 
truth of this general statement might easily be proved 
and illustrated by citation of authorities and examples, 
if that were needed or appropriate in this connection. 
The justice of it will be recognized at once by all who 
are acquainted with the translations of Yon Hammer 
and Riickert, and with the Sankhya and Yedanta sys- 
tems of Hindu metaphysics. This is sufficient to show 
the injustice of depicting two strongly contrasted faces, 
and, pointing out their unlike lineaments, exclaiming, 
Behold there the Oriental, here the Occidental Muse ! 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 19 

The respective literary progeny of East and "West 
often closely resemble each other in many particulars 
by mutual or alternate approximation, although com- 
monly, as we should naturally expect, there are certain 
family features, and an indefinable expression, distin- 
guishing them. As it is no rare thing for Asiatic au- 
thors to compose like European, so Europeans frequent- 
ly write in the fullest vein of the Asiatics. Shake- 
speare out-orients the Orient with his apostrophe to 
" eyes that do mislead the morn." What inspired child 
or frantic devotee of the Persian lyre ever transcended 
such figures as "flecked Darkness like a drunkard reels 
from the pathway of day as gray-eyed Morn advances " ; 
" I would tear the cave where Echo lies, and make her 
airy tongue hoarse with repetition " ; " Heaven peeps 
through the blanket of the dark " ; and ten thousand 
other images equally astonishing, born in our English 
speech ? Sir William Jones strikingly brings together 
a prose-translated ode of the Persian Bulbul, and a kin- 
dred ditty of the British Swan, to show that the poetic 
imaginations of the two countries are, after all, not so 
different as has been supposed. According to our poor 
versification, thus run the notes of the splendid Bulbul 
of Shiraz : — 

Sweet gale ! my love this fragrant scent has on thee cast, 
And thence it is that thou this pleasing odor hast. 
Beware ! Steal not ; what with her locks hast thou to do ? 
O rose ! what art thou when compared with that which blew 
In blush upon her cheek ? She 's fresh, thou 'rt rough with 

thorns. 
Narcissus ! to her languid eye, as blue as morn's, 
Thine eye is sick and faint. O pine ! in thy high place, 
What honor hast thou when compared with her shape's grace ? 



20 INTRODUCTION TO 

Sweet basil ! know'st thou not her lips are perfect musk, 
Whilst withered, lifeless, scentless, thou shalt lie at dusk ? 
O come, my love ! and charm poor Hafiz with thy stay, 
Even if thou linger'st with him but for one short day. 

And then thus in unison chimes the strain of the won- 
drous Swan of Avon: — 

" The forward violet thus did I chide : 
Sweet thief ! whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells, 
If not from my love's breath ? The purple pride, 
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells, 
In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed. 
The lily I condemned for thy hand ; 
And buds of marjoram had stolen thy hair ; 
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand, 
One blushing shame, another white despair ; 
A third, nor red nor white, had stolen of both, 
And to his robbery had annexed thy breath : 
But for his theft, in pride of all his growth," 
A vengeful canker eat him up to death. 
More flowers I noted, yet I none could see, 
But scent or color it had stolen from thee." 

The two antipodal realms of poetry often coalesce, 
and reflect each other in corresponding products, spring- 
ing from similar exercise of like faculties, and contem- 
plation of the same phenomena, and impulses of iden- 
tical experience. The human heart is like a harp borne 
through many lands, in every place, when played on 
by the fingers of nature, time and fate, love, hope and 
grief, yielding the same tones, though variously colored 
by the different associations of scene and race amidst 
which they sound, and variously echoed by the different 
temperaments and objects upon which they strike. It is 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 21 

also true, that, especially of late years, innumerable im- 
ages, fancies, modes of reflection, and tinges of senti- 
ment have found their way from the immemorial plains 
of Hindostan, the vales of Cashmere, and the cities of 
Arabia, to our modern and far-away minds and books. 
" The seeds, there scattered first, flower in all later 
pages." Verily, as Milnes has happily rendered Goe- 
the's thought, 

" Many a light the* Orient throws, 
O'er the midland waters brought ; 
He alone who Hafiz knows 
Knows what Calderon has thought." 

Still we may say, in general, in regard to the distinc- 
tion between the light literature of Asia and that of Eu- 
rope, that they do, for the most part, greatly differ in the 
religions, philosophies, mythologies, traditions, customs, 
names, scenery, costumes, and ruling aims reflected in 
them respectively. And it must be owned by every 
one, that the East is, in a striking degree, more poetic 
— that is, more gorgeous, sensitive, passionate, subtile, 
and mysterious — than the West. It is to us what 
wine is to water, the peacock to the hen, the palm to 
the pine, the orange to the apple. 

" Eastward roll the orbs of heaven, 
Westward tend the thoughts of men ; 
Let the poet, nature-driven, 
Wander eastward now and then " ; — 

for who would appreciate the poem must travel in the 
poet's land, and on every such excursion the lyric heart 
will find itself at home in that region, for it is native 
there. Humanity was cradled in the nest of dawn, and 



22 INTRODUCTION TO 

a secret current in our souls still turns and flows to- 
wards mankind's natal star, standing above Eden, over 
the birth-spot of Adam. Whoso would plunge into the 
primal font of poesy, and bathe his soul in the very elixir 
of immortal freedom, must not turn his face after the 
sun in the circling course of industrial empire, — 

" But crowd the canvas on his bark, 
And sail to meet the morning." 

"We think of the East as the home of magic and 
wonder, the misty birthplace of wisdom, the haunted 
shrine of an antique civilization, crowded with mazy im- 
mensities of human experience before the gates of Tad- 
mor were swung, or the crown of Palmyra had been so 
much as dreamed of. It rises in our thoughts with its 
dim-swarming people^, now sunk fibreless in soft seas of 
sense, now frenetic with superhuman inspiration, as a 
kingdom whose hills are ribbed with silver shafts, its 
streams bedded with golden sand, its trenched ravines 
lined with pebbling diamonds, the edge of its strands 
covered with coral, the floor of its bays strewed with 
pearls, the breath of its meadows odorous with myrrh, 
its flowering trees of perennial green and bloom ever 
sagging with delicious fruit, cool fountains spouting in 
every court, and entranced bulbuls warbling on every 
spray. Its geographical features and its intellectual 
conceptions, alike, are on a scale of prodigious grandeur 
whose vastitude crushes the power of sense, but pro- 
vokes Imagination to the fullest expansion of her cloudy 
wings. Its Ganges encounters the ocean with a shock 
that shakes the globe, and its Dhawalaghiri makes Olym- 
pus but little better than a wart ; its banyan over- 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 26 

shadows armies and flourishes a thousand years ; its cos- 
mogonies dwarf the hugest dreams of Greece and Scan- 
dinavia ; in the background of its legends stalk deities 
to whom Jupiter Tonans and Hammering Thor are 
Lilliputian dandies ; and its annals enclose eons of 
epochs in which successive universes exist and perish 
like breaths in a frosty air. The poetry we should ex- 
pect, and have found, is as the clime, — vast in mystery, 
warm with passion, far-vistaed with reverie, rich in 
jewels, redolent with perfumes, brilliant in colors, inex- 
haustible in profusion. 

The metrical compositions of the Chinese are of 
three kinds in subject, scarcely ever varying from a 
certain ethical moderation of thought, or going beyond 
a prosaic level of emotion, though sometimes displaying 
wit of a quite excellent mirth. The first sort of Chinese 
poetry consists of simple moral tales with admonitory 
applications. The second consists of the aphoristic ex- 
pressions of a shrewd observation and a cunning judg- 
ment. Such as the striking couplet, 

" Who, in politeness, Lokman, was thy guide ? 
The unpolite ! the learned sage replied." 

Or such as this proverb, by one of their most renowned 

mandarins : — 

Who sues a mite 
Will catch a bite. 

The following is one of the sentences of Confucius 
himself: — 

Wisdom brings joy, clear as a crystal fountain : 
Virtue brings peace, firm as an iron mountain. 

The third is composed of feeling reflections on human 



24 INTRODUCTION TO 

life, of which a fair example may be found in the fol- 
lowing fragment of an address to the people by an 
aged governor on leaving office : — 

When I look backward o'er the field of fame, 
Where I have travelled a long fifty years, 
The struggle for ambition, and the sweat 
For gain, seem altogether vanity. 

The Shi-King, one of the five sacred books which 
stand at the head of the Chinese literature, is a collec- 
tion of lyrical poems, three hundred and eleven in num- 
ber, selected by Confucius from a much larger number 
existing in his time, as most worthy of preservation. 
They belong mainly to the epoch 1122 - 650 B. C. ; a 
few, however, claim, and doubtless with justice, to date 
from 1766-1123 B. C, and are accordingly among the 
very earliest poetical productions of the human race still 
preserved. They are in part of popular origin, ballad- 
like ; partly satires, or panegyrics upon persons high in 
station ; partly hymns recited at the offerings to the 
dead. Their poetic value is very unequal, but they far 
exceed, upon the whole, most of the lyric productions of 
later ages, containing not infrequently noble, unartificial 
feelings expressed in a style of simple majesty and inim- 
itable energy. 

The next poetical work in the Chinese literature is the 
Ts y ii-Tsse\ ascribed to the fourth century before Christ, 
and to a single author, but probably the work of dif- 
ferent authors at different times. It contains moral 
declamations in poetic language, but no proper poetical 
compositions. Nothing farther appears until the period 
A. D. 618-906, when a much more artificial construe- 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 25 

tion of rerse was introduced, and when an astonishing 
number of lyric poets appeared. A single, great col- 
lection, published by imperial command in 1707, con- 
tains the poems of more than a thousand poets and po- 
etasters of this period, giving the biography also of 
each one, and a critical examination of his works. The 
productions of this period are regarded as models for 
all subsequent times.* 

Palestinian poetry needs no illustration here by ex- 
amples, because it is already universally accessible and 
familiar. The grand national characteristic of the 
Hebrew Muse is fervent rational piety, based on 
the bounded intellectual conception of a personal God, 
whose favor towards his children depends on the two 
conditions of his own disintereste*d loves, and their moral 
qualities. The spirit and sum of Hebrew poetry are 
certainly the loftiest, purest, richest, the whole ancient 
world affords. Arabic literature, including its boasted 
Koran, is challenged to exhibit a production which can 
rival the story of the Idumasan patriarch in beautiful 
argument, imaginative sublimity, and descriptive elo- 
quence. In all the Persian tongue's erotic wealth no 
Anacreontic. idyl can at all approach the Song of Songs, 
which is Solomon's. No Hindu sage has wrought such 
a peerless mine of apothegmatic wisdom as the man- 
ual of proverbs by the young Judgean king, at whose 
feet the far-come queen of Sheba fell, crying, " The half 



* I am indebted for the latter part of the foregoing sketch to 
the kindness of Professor W. D. Whitney, whose labors, in con- 
nection with Dr. Koth, in editing the Atharva Veda, are an honor 
to American scholarship. 



26 INTRODUCTION TO 

was not told me." No Greek or Roman moralist has 
ever sung the experience and enforced the lesson of a 
sensualist's life in such solemn lines and freighted peri- 
ods, with such melancholy refrain, and such divine con- 
clusion, as the author of Ecclesiastes. And beyond all 
emulation stand the religious hymns sung in Zion to the 
harp of David as the monarch-minstrel swept its chords. 
There is no speech nor language where their voice is not 
heard, and their words have gone out to the end of the 
world. Their echoes have floated, and will float, amidst 
the heart-strings of uncounted generations of exulting, 
sorrowing, confessing, worshipping humanity. And 
what is there in the most thrilling strains of the whole 
earth besides, to equal the martial ardor, the terrible 
pomp, the all-marshalling imagination, in the warlike 
bursts and inspired improvisations that drop burning 
from the lightning lyres of Isaiah and Habakkuk, 
amidst visions of meteor standards, staggering armies 
with garments rolled in blood, melting hills, falling 
stars, and a darkened universe ! To those who would 
really appreciate Hebrew poetry, Dr. Noyes's transla- 
tions deserve to be emphatically commended for the 
faithful purity with which they render the original into 
Saxon speech of crystal clearness. His translation is 
far more literal, concise, properly divided, and intelligi- 
ble than the common version, and his notes are admira- 
bly judicious in rendering all needed helps. 

It is the purpose of the .present work to illustrate 
the poetry of the three great families occupying South- 
ern and Western Asia, stretching, on the upper ex- 
tremity, from the Black Sea to Samarcand; on the 
lower, from Sumatra to the Straits of Babelmandel. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 27 

These families are the Hindus, the Arabs, and the 
Persians, including under the last head the Turks, 
as possessing the same imaginative type and literary 
traits. The subjects common to all their metrical au- 
thors, and upon which the poetic lore of each of the 
countries has an enormous quantity of productions, are 
philosophical meditations, moral parables, fanciful tales, 
old traditions, feats and adventures of heroes and trav- 
ellers, pure creations of imagination, love-odes, theo- 
sophic musings, religious hymns, descriptions and moral- 
izings of natural phenomena, and such like. But while 
the three peoples have certain themes and styles of 
treatment in common, each also has some subjects and 
a prevailing spirit peculiar to itself. 

The doctrine of the metempsychosis, which saturates 
so much of the literature of the East with its manifold 
influences, — its ascetic aims and painful penances re- 
ducing all life to a ritual system, — properly belongs to 
the Indian race. That luxuriousness and indolence and 
Epicurean proclivity which we so often associate with 
the Orient, are Persian. But martial movement, bound- 
ing arteries, indefatigable activity, love of perilous enter- 
prise, thirsting rage, are Arab. The first may be rep- 
resented by the Elephant, the second by the Gazelle, the 
third by the Lion. The Hindu Muse is pre-eminently 
characterized by pensiveness, love of meditation. Her 
children see everything reflected in reverie. The world 
is suspended in Maya, or illusion, and they mildly think 
upon it. The Arab Muse is pre-eminently characterized 
by an ardent objectivity, active passion, freedom from 
morbid introspectiveness. Her children love outward 
things, ■ deeds, descriptions. Their stories are of the 



28 INTRODUCTION TO 

headlong race across Sahara, encounters with the lion, 
or smiting a foe. The sap in their trees seems blood, 
an'd the blood in their veins lire. The Persian Muse is 
pre-eminently characterized by delicacy of sensation. A 
vital fancy, now finical in its conceits, now world-grasp- 
ing in its illumined dilation, is over and through all her 
works. Victor Hugo, in his " Les Orientales," says 
" the Persians are the Italians of Asia." There is a 
fourth Muse in these countries, differing essentially from 
the foregoing ; not confined to either clime, but having 
the freedom of each, and reckoning as her servants a 
large class of the most gifted poets in them all. I refer 
to Srifism, whose pre-eminent characteristic is an intense 
subjectivity. Her adherents turn all faculties inwards 
in concentred abstraction, and heighten their conscious- 
ness till it is lost in boundless identification. Thought 
and sensation, transfused and molten, flow through form- 
less moulds into ecstasy. 

The Hindus possess a distinguishing treasure in their 
drama. The most charming specimen of this known 
to us as yet is Sakuntala, — an episode drawn from the 
Mahabharata, and constructed by Kalidasa, of which 
a fresh translation by Professor Williams has but now 
been published, in a volume of profuse beauty and cost- 
liness. Goethe paid this play the following magnificent 
compliment : — 

Wouldst thou the blossoms of the spring, the autumn's 
fruits, 

Wouldst thou what charms and thrills, wouldst thou what 
sates and feeds, 

Wouldst thou the heaven, the earth, in one sole word com- 
press ? 

I name Sakuntala, and so have said it all. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 29 

There are two cycles of Hindu traditions and myths, 
wrought up, unknown ages ago, into two tremendous 
epics ; the elder, the Ramayana, attributed to Valmiki, 
the other, the Mahabharata, ascribed to Vyasa. The 
Ramayana is a history of the avatar or incarnation of 
Vishnu in human shape, to deliver the world from a 
gigantic demon, Ravana, who was tyrannizing over 
mankind, and had extended his power into the lower 
heavens. By terrible penances he had wrought from 
Brahma the promise that no mortal being should de- 
stroy him. Upon this he began openly to oppress all 
the good in his dominions, and to promote the impious. 
The curtain rises, and the action begins with a solemn 
conclave of the gods on the summit of Mount Meru. 
The senate of the Indian Olympus is filled with dismay 
at the invincible power bestowed on the tyrant by 
Brahma's promise. At last Vishnu advances, and 
offers to be born as a man, to vanquish the common 
enemy. The next scene is on earth, at the court of 
Ayodhya, where King Dasaratha finds himself in old 
age without a son to succeed him. A saint advises 
him to perform the celebrated sacrifice of a horse, the 
Aswamedha. He does so, and his three wives bear 
him four sons, the eldest, Rama, being Vishnu himself. 
Rama has a great many adventures while his youth is 
passing, but at last is about to inherit the throne, when 
he is supplanted and banished for fourteen years. His 
wife, Sita, and his brother Lakshmana accompany him. 
A long account follows of the scenes and occurrences of 
their wanderings. Finally they settle in a deep forest, 
Rama and Lakshmana spending their time in hunting 
beasts and chasing the demons. In Rama's absence 



30 INTRODUCTION TO 

Jlavana discovers the cottage, and carries Sita away to 
lus own abode. The disconsolate husband searches the 
peninsula in vain ; but meeting a tribe of apes, whose 
king, Sugriva, had been deprived of his crown, Rama 
restored it to him, and the grateful monkey-monarch 
sent a multitude of his people to find Sita. After much 
useless wandering, one of Sugriva's messengers discov- 
ered Sita imprisoned in Havana's palace, and brought 
the tidings to Rama, who immediately set out with an 
army of apes for the southernmost point of India, off 
whose coast the island-home of the tyrant lay. The 
apes threw Titanic rocks into the sea, until they made 
a bridge to the island. Then Rama passed over with 
his forces, and, after a dreadful battle, killed the demon, 
scattered his subject fiends, and rescued his beloved 
spouse. Returning to Ayodhya with his wife and his 
faithful brother, his lawful kingdom is given to him, 
and the work ends. "Within this vague outline innu- 
merable branching episodes and details are included, 
which give the poem a most varied charm and value. 
I will now give an epitome, from a very valuable 
article on " Indian Epic Poetry," in the October number 
of the Westminster Review for 1848, of 

HAVANA'S CAPTURE OF SIT A. 
I. 

" Lakshmana, grieved at Sita's words, no longer undecided 

stood, 
But hied him forth in Rama's search, and left her in the 

lonely wood. 
With many a dark presentiment fast gathering round, and 

unknown fear, 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 31 

In the deep forest-paths he roved, like one who roves he 

wists not where. 
And now that thus the golden deer had lured the brothers 

both away, 
Havana deemed within himself the hour was come to seize 

his prey. 
There he beheld the dame forlorn, left in that cottage all 

alone, 
As upon earth is left a gloom, when meet eclipsed the sun 

and moon : 
And while upon her form he gazed, so fair in such a dreary 

spot, 
Thus to himself the tyrant spoke, as he surveyed the lonely 

cot: 
4 While she is left with husband none, with brother none, to 

hear her cries, 
Why longer stay ? the time is come to claim and seize my 

rightful prize.' ' 
Thus having pondered in his heart, Ravana left his hiding- 
place, 
And walked where Sita sorrowing sat, clothed in a wander- 
ing beggar's dress. 
Threadbare and red his garment was, th' ascetic's tuft of hair 

he wore, 
And the three sticks and water-pot in his accursed hand he 

bore. 
As he drew near, the lofty trees, that over Janasthana 

grow, 
And every twining creeper-plant which hangs and climbs 

from bough to bough, 
And every bird and every beast, stood motionless with silent 

dread, 
Nor dared the summer wind to breathe, nor shake a leaflet 

overhead. 
Over Godavery's bright wave a shiver darkened as he 

passed, 



32 INTRODUCTION TO 

And bird and beast in terror fled, as on lie came in evil 
haste, 

With his black heart and beggar's garb, disguised and hidden 
as he was, 

Like a dark well, whose unseen brink is overgrown with 
waving grass. 

Hard by the cottage-door he stood, and gazed upon his vic- 
tim fair, 

As there she sat in woful plight, lost in a maze of grief and 
fear, 

Keft of her husband, and with gloom o'ershadowed like a 
moonless sky, 

Weeping alone in silent woe, and musing o'er that unknown 
cry. 

On her he gazed, and that fair face seemed ever fairer and 
more bright ; 

And his stern eye, awhile absorbed, lingered as loath to lose 
the sight. 

Fierce passion woke within his heart, until at length, with 
softened air, 

He thus addressed her as she sat, shining, a golden statue 
there : 

' thou, that shinest like a tree with summer blossoms over- 
spread, 

Wearing that woven husa robe, and lotus garland on thy 
head, 

Why art thou dwelling here alone, here in this dreary for- 
est's shade, 

Where range at will all beasts of prey, and demons prowl 
in every glade ? 

Wilt thou not leave thy cottage home, and roam the world, 
which stretches wide, — 

See the fair cities which men build, and all their gardens, 
and their pride ? 

Why longer, fair one, dwell'st thou here, feeding on roots 
and sylvan fare, 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 33 

When thou might'st dwell in palaces, and earth's most costly 
jewels wear ? 

Fearest thou not the forest gloom, which darkens round on 
every side ? 

Who art thou, say, and whose, and whence, and wherefore 
dost thou here abide ? ' 

When first these words of Ravana broke upon sorrowing 
Sita's ear, 

She started up, and lost herself in wonderment and doubt 
and fear ; 

But soon her gentle, loving heart threw off suspicion and sur- 
mise, 

And slept again in confidence, lulled by the mendicant's dis- 
guise. 

1 Hail, holy Brahmin ! ' she exclaimed ; and, in her guileless 
purity, 

She gave a welcome to her guest with courteous hospitality. 

Water she brought to wash his feet, and food to satisfy his 
need, 

Full little dreaming in her heart what fearful guest she had 
received. 

II. 

" Then having pondered on his words, after a pause she made 

reply, 
And, in her guileless confidence, unbosomed all her history : 
How Rama won her for his bride, and brought her to his 

father's home, 
And how another's jealousy had cast them forth, the woods 

to roam ; 
All her full heart she opened then, and all her husband's 

praise she spoke, 
And long she lingered o' er the tale, and all the memories 

which it woke. 
' And thou too, Brahmin,' she exclaimed, ' thy name and 

lineage wilt thou say ? 



34 INTRODUCTION TO 

And wherefore thou hast left thy land, in pathless Dandaka 
to stray ? 

Erelong my husband will return ; to him are holy wander- 
ers dear, 

And fair the welcome which he gives, whene 'er their path- 
way leads them here.' 

Then answered her the demon-king, ' My name and lineage 
thou shalt hear, 

And wherefore in this guise I come, and wander in this forest 
drear. 

Thee, Sita, am I come to see, — I, at whose name heaven's 
armies flee. 

The demon-monarch of the earth, I, Ravana, am come to 
thee! 

I come to woo thee for my queen ; in Lanka stands my palace 
home, 

High on a mountain's forehead built, while round it breaks 
the ocean's foam. 

There like dark clouds my demons stand, my mandates 
through the earth to bear ; 

There shalt thou worshipped be like me, and all my world- 
dominion share.' 

In sudden wrath outburst she then, the wife of Raghu's 
princely son, 

And gushed indignant from her lips the answer to that evil 
one : 

i Me wouldst thou woo to be thy queen, or dazzle with thine 
empire's shine ? 

And didst thou dream that Rama's wife could stoop to such 
a prayer as thine ? 

i", who can look on Rama's face, and know that there my 
husband stands, 

My Rama, whose high chivalry is blazoned through a hun- 
dred lands ! 

What ! shall the jackal think to tempt the lioness to mate 
with him ? 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 35 

Or did the king of Lanka's isle build upon such an idle 

dream ? 
He who would enter Rama's home, and think to tear his wife 

away, 
Might beard the lion in its den, and rob its hunger of its 

prey ; 
Or safer far her new-born cubs from the fierce tigress might 

he wrest, 
Or in his garment wrap the flame, and fold and nurse it to 

his breast ! ' 
Stung to the heart by Sit&'s words, the foe in silence folds 

his hands, 
And at that lonely cottage door a mendicant no longer 

stands : 
'Tis but a moment, and behold! bursting from out th' as- 
sumed disguise, 
Before her towers the demon-king, with his black brow and 

glaring eyes, 
In his dark crimson garment wrapt, and his black frown of 

passion wearing, 
While she, the helpless, stood beneath, with her fair face and 

gentle bearing. 
* Sita, wilt thou reject me now ? In mine own shape I speak 

to thee. 
Behold thine utter helplessness, and dream not to escape 

from me. 
Nor dream to call thine husband's aid, nor measure his poor 

strength with mine, — 
Mine, that has conquered land and sea, and could forbid the 

sun to shine ! 
Afar to my own stately realm, behold \ I bear thee hence 

away, 
There to forget the banished man, the husband of a former 

day ! ' 
He spoke, and lowered his darkening brows, as lowers the 

storm-cloud in the sky, 



36 INTRODUCTION TO 

While from beneath came flashing forth the lightnings of his 

awful eye ; 
On her they fell, and seemed to scorch her gentle features 

with their glare. 
As high aloft he bore her up, — one hand amid her long 

fair hair, 
The other underneath her lay, — loudly she shrieked in utter 

woe, 
' My husband, husband, sav'st thou not ? and Lakshmana, O 

where art thou ? ' 
As they beheld his awful form come striding through the 

sunny glades, 
The forest's deities, alarmed, fled to its deepest, darkest 

shades. 
On, ever on, he bore his prize, until at length he soared on 

high, 
And, as an eagle bears a snake, flew with his burden through 

the sky. 
'0 Rama ! Rama! ' loud she cries, ' where wanderest thou in 

Dandaka ? 
And seest thou not the demon arm, which bears thy Sita 

far away? 
Well may the jealous foe rejoice, who robbed thee of thy 

father's throne, 
And sent us from thy father's court to roam these weary 

woods alone ! 
O Janasthana's flowering bowers, whilom my happy haunts, 

farewell ! 
When Rama to his cot returns, his sorrowing Sita's story 

tell! 
And you, ye trees, that blossom there, and gladden the dark 

forest gloom, 
O tell him, tell him Ravana hath stolen his Sita from his 

home ! 
And thou, my loved Godavery, where I whilom so oft have 

strayed, 



ORIENTAL POETBY. 37 

And watched thy flocks of water-fowl, and heard their wild 
songs as they played ; 

Let thy sad waters murmur it, as home he wanders by thy 
shore, 

And tell him with their mournful plash that Sita. meets his 
steps no more ! 

And you too, upon you I call, ye blissful guardians of the 
woods, 

Ye happy sylvan deities, who roam amidst their solitudes ! 

give him tidings of my fate, and tell him, as he roams for- 
lorn, 

The fell swoop of the demon-king hath Sita from his dwell- 
ing torn ! 

Well knows my heart, with instincts true, he will pursue his 
lost one's track, 

Though to the kingdoms of the dead he must descend to 
bring her back.'" 

The Mahabharata contains two hundred thousand six- 
teen-syllable lines, and fills four thick quarto volumes. 
Its proper subject, which is a war waged for the throne 
of India, between the sons of two brothers, Pandu and 
Dhritarashtra, is buried under an enormous accumula- 
tion of legends and heterogeneous lore. The work 
is therefore an inexhaustible repository of the mythical 
materials, the philosophy and the fiction of India. The 
clew — which so often seems to be lost in these interpo- 
lations, ranging from Krishna's metaphysics to Arjuna 
in the Bhagvat Gita, to the transparent simplicity of 
beauty in the matchless tale of Nala — is always skil- 
fully resumed, and the whole plot is evolved to the 
reader's entire satisfaction at last. Indeed, to my mind, 
the closing passage of the Mahabharata, take it for all 
in all, is the culminating point of the poetic literature of 



38 INTRODUCTION TO 

the world. The following abstract of it is from the 
writer in the Westminster Review already referred to. 

"We know of no episode, even in the Homeric 
poems, which can surpass its mournful grandeur, or 
raise a more solemn dirge over the desolation of the 
fallen heart of man. Yudishthira has won the throne, 
and his enemies are all fallen ; and an inferior poet 
would have concluded the story with a paean upon his 
happiness. 

" Yudishthira learns, after his victory, that the throne 
for which he has suffered so much leaves him as unsat- 
isfied and hungry as before. The friends of his youth 
are fallen, and the excitement of contest is over. In 
gloomy disappointment, he resigns his crown, and, with 
his brothers and Draupadi, sets out on a forlorn journey 
to Mount Meru, where Indra's heaven lies, amongst the 
wilds of the Himalayas, there to find that rest which 
seems denied to their search upon earth. 

I. 

" Having heard Yudishthira's resolve, and seen the destruc- 
tion of Krishna, 

The five brothers set forth, and Draupadi, and the seventh 
was a dog that followed them. 

Yudishthira himself was the last that quitted Hastinapura ; 

And all the citizens and the court followed them on their 
way, 

But none felt able to say unto him, ' Return ' ; 

And at length they all went back unto the city. 

Then the high-souled sons of Pandu and far-famed Drau- 
padi 

Pursued their way, fasting and with their faces turned to- 
wards the east, 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 39 

Resolved upon separation from earth, and longing for release 

from its laws ; 
They roamed onward over many regions, and to many a 

river and sea. 
Yudishthira went before, and Bhima followed next behind 

him, 
And Arjuna came after him, and then the twin sons of 

Madri, 
And sixth, after them, came Draupadi, with her fair face and 

lotus eyes, 
And last of all followed the dog, as they wandered on till 

they came to the ocean. 
But Arjuna left not hold of his heavenly bow, 
Lured by the splendor of its gems, nor of those two heavenly 

arrows : 
And suddenly they saw Agni standing like a mountain before 

them, — 
Standing in gigantic form, and stopping up their path ; 
And thus to them spoke the god : ' O sons of Pandu, do you 

know me not ? 

Yudishthira, mighty hero, knowest thou not my voice ? 

1 am Agni, who gave that bow unto Arjuna ; 

Let him leave it here and go, for none other is worthy to 
bear it. 

For Arjuna's sake I stole that bow from Varuna, the ocean- 
god; 

Let Gandhiva, that best of bows, be given back to ocean 
again ! ' 

Then the brothers all besought Arjuna to obey ; 

And he flung the bow into the sea, and he flung those im* 
mortal arrows; 

And lo ! as they fell into the sea, Agni vanished before 
them. 

And once more the sons of Pandu set forth, with their faces 
turned to the south. 

And then by the upper shore of the briny sea 



40 INTRODUCTION TO 

They turned toward the southwest, and went on in their 

way. 
And as they journeyed onwards, and came unto the west, 
There they beheld the old city of Krishna, now washed over 

by the ocean tide. 
Again they turned to the north, and still they went on in 

their way, 
Circumambulating round the continent, to find separation 

from earth. 

II. 

11 Then, with their senses subdued, the heroes, having reached 

the north, 
Beheld, with their heaven-desiring eyes, the lofty mountain 

Himavat, 
And having crossed its height, they beheld the sea of sand, 
And next they saw rocky Meru, the king of mountains. 
But while they were thus faring onwards, in eager search for 

separation, 
Draupadi lost hold of her hope, and fell on the face of the 

earth ; • 

And Bhima the mighty, having beheld her fall, 
Spoke to the king of justice, looking back to her, as there 

she lay : 
4 No act of evil hath she done, that faultless daughter of a 

king! 
Wherefore, then, O conqueror ! hath she fallen thus low on 

the ground ? ' 
And thus to him answered Yudishthira : ' Too great was her 

love for Arjuna, 
And the fruit thereof, O Bhima ! hath she here gathered this 

day.' 
Thus speaking, Bharata's glorious descendant went onwards, 

not looking back, 
Gathering up his soul in himself in his unstooping wisdom 

and justice. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 41 

Next the fair Sahadeva fell upon the face of the earth, 
And Bhima, beholding him fall, thus spake to the king : 
1 O Yudishthira, he, the greatest, the least froward and wil- 
ful of us all, 
He, the son of fair Madri, — wherefore hath he fallen on the 

ground ? ' 
And him thus answered Yudishthira : ' He esteemed none 

equal to himself; 
This was his fault, and therefore hath the prince fallen this 

day.' 
Thus speaking, he left Sahadeva, and went on, 
Yudishthira, king of justice, with his brothers and the dog. 
But when Nakula saw the fall of Draupadi and his brother, 
The hero, full of love for his kindred, in his grief fell down 

like them to the earth. 
And when Nakula, the fair-faced, had thus fallen like the 

others, 
Once more, in his wonder, spoke Bhima unto the king: 
i What ! he, the undeviating in virtue, ever true to his honor 

and faith, 
Unequalled for beauty in the world, — hath he too fallen on 

the ground ? ' 
And him thus answered Yudishthira : * Ever was the thought 

in his heart, 
There is none equal in beauty to me, and I am superior unto 

all! 
Therefore hath Nakula fallen. Come, Bhima, and follow my 

steps; 
Whatsoever each hath done, assuredly he eateth thereof.' 
And when Arjuna beheld them thus fallen behind him, 
He too, the great conqueror, fell, with his soul pierced 

through with sorrow ; 
And when he, the lion-heart, was fallen, like Indra himself in 

majesty, — 
When he, the invincible, was dead, once more Bhima spoke 

unto the king : 



42 INTRODUCTION TO 

'No act of evil do I remember in all that Arjuna hath 

done; 
Wherefore then is this change, and why hath he too fallen on 

the ground ? ' 
And him thus answered Yudishthira : ' " In one day I could 

destroy all my enemies," — 
Such was Arjuna's boast, and he falls, for he fulfilled it not ! 
And he ever despised all warriors beside himself : 
This he ought not to have done, and therefore hath he fallen 

to-day.' 
Thus speaking, the king went on, and then Bhima himself 

next fell to the earth ; 
And as he fell, he cried with a loud voice unto Yudishthira : 
4 O king of justice, look back ! I — I, thy dear brother, am 

fallen ; 
What is the cause of my fall ? O tell it to me if thou know- 

est!' 
Once more him answered Yudishthira : ' When thou gazedst 

on thy foe, 
Thou hast cursed him with thy breath ; therefore thou too 

fallest to-day.' 
Thus having spoken, the mighty king, not looking back, went 

on, 
And still, as ever, behind him went following his dog alone ! 

III. 

" Lo ! suddenly, with a sound which rang through heaven and 

earth, 
Indra came riding on his chariot, and he cried to the king, 

' Ascend ! ' 
Then, indeed, did the lord of justice look back to his fallen 

brothers, 
And thus unto Indra he spoke, with a sorrowful heart : 
' Let my brothers, who yonder lie fallen, go with me ; 
Not even unto thy heaven would I enter, if they were not 

there. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 43 

And yon fair-faced daughter of a king, Draupadi the all- 
deserving, 
Let her too enter with us ! O Indra, approve my prayer ! ' 

INDRA. 

' In heaven thou shalt find thy brothers, — they are already 

there before thee ; 
There are they all, with Draupadi; weep not, then, O son of 

Bharata ! 
Thither are they entered, prince, having thrown away their 

mortal weeds ; 
But thou alone shalt enter still wearing thy body of flesh.' 

YUDISHTHIRA. 

' O Indra, and what of this dog ? It hath faithfully followed 
me through ; 

Let it go with me into heaven, for my soul is full of compas- 
sion/ 

INDRA. 

' Immortality and fellowship with me, and the height of joy 
and felicity, 

All these hast thou reached to-day : leave, then, the dog be- 
hind thee.' 

YUDISHTHIRA. 

' The good may oft act an evil part, but never a part like 

this; 
Away, then, with that felicity whose price is to abandon the 

faithful!' 

INDRA. 

4 My heaven hath no place for dogs ; they steal away our of- 
ferings on earth : 

Leave, then, thy dog behind thee, nor think in thy heart that 
it is cruel.' 

YUDISHTHIRA. 

' To abandon the faithful and devoted is an endless crime, like 
the murder of a Brahmin ; 



44 INTRODUCTION TO 

Never, therefore, come weal or woe, will I abandon yon 

faithful dog. 
Yon poor creature, in fear and distress, hath trusted in my 

power to save it : 
Not, therefore, for e'en life itself will I break my plighted 

word.' 

INDRA. 

4 If a dog but beholds a sacrifice, men esteem it unholy and 
void ; 

Forsake, then, the dog, O hero, and heaven is thine own as a 
reward. 

Already thou hast borne to forsake thy fondly loved broth- 
ers, and Draupadi ; 

Why, then, forsakest thou not the dog ? Wherefore now fails 
thy heart ? '* 

YUDISHTHIRA. 

' Mortals, when they are dead, are dead to love or hate, — so 

runs the world's belief; 
I could not bring them back to life, but while they lived I 

never left them. 
To oppress the suppliant, to kill a wife, to rob a Brahmin, 

and to betray one's friend, 
These are the four great crimes ; and to forsake a dependant 

I count equal to them.' 

" Yudishthira then enters heaven ; but one more trial 
awaits him. He finds there Duryodhana and the other 
sons of Dhritarashtra, but he looks in vain for his own 
brothers. He refuses to stay in the Swerga without 
them, and a messenger is sent to bring him where they 
are. He descends to the Indian hell, and finds them 
there ; and he proudly resolves to stay with them and 
share their sorrows, rather than dwell in heaven without 
them. But the whole scene was only a maya, or illusion, 
to prove his virtue ; — the sorrows suddenly vanish, — 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 45 

the surrounding hell changes into heaven, where Yu- 
dishthira and his brothers dwell with Indra, in full con- 
tent of heart, for ever." 

To the impressed imaginations and touched hearts of 
those who have read this wonderful poem, Hastinapura 
is a grander name than Troy, and Dhritarashtra, Pan- 
du, Yudishthira, Arjuna, Bhima, Kama, Damayanta, 
Draupadi, and Savitri are clothed with a sublime fas- 
cination of interest far transcending that which invests 
the highest personages of Grecian epic and tragedy. 
I will cite but one brief fragment more, a picture which 
like a quick, broad flash lights up to our ignorance the 
dark stage and canvas of the Hindu fancy. A Brah- 
min suddenly enters the . arena, amidst the clang and 
confusion of a tournament : notice what an instant 
■ hush follows, both in the din of the crowd and in the 
mind of the reader." 

" With the noise of the musical instruments, and the eager 
noise of the spectators, 

The din of the assembly rose up like the roaring of the sea, 

When, lo ! wearing his white raiment, and the white sacrifi- 
cial cord, 

With his snow-white hair and his silvery beard, and the 
white garland round his head, 

Into the midst of the arena slowly walked the Brahmin with 
his son, 

Like the sun with the planet Mars in a cloudless sky." 

The Arabians have a unique kind of poems called 
Moallaca. It receives its name from the seven prize 
poems written in gold and " suspended " in the temple of 
Mecca, — the Pleiades in the heaven of Arabic poetry. 
This poem must commence with describing in mournful 



46 INTRODUCTION TO 

strain the ruins of a house or the deserted site of a tent, 
where, in an earlier, happier time, the poet was blessed 
with the presence of his beloved. Next the poet pro- 
ceeds to paint in glowing imagery the beauty and the 
merits of his courser or his camel. And the composi- 
tion closes with a description of some scene in nature, a 
shower, a moon-rise, or a landscape. These three par- 
ticulars being introduced in their proper order, the 
author is free to weave in with them any story, reflec- 
tions, or moral he pleases. It is very singular that 
these conditions of the Moallaca are all, in a manner, 
fulfilled in the book of Job, — the ruin of his eldest son's 
house with the destruction of his family, the famous 
panegyric of the horse, the description of constellations, 
thunder, and a whirlwind. A fine example of Arab 
scenery and life is given in the following poem by 
Freiligrath. The translation is by a writer in the Pros- 
pective Review. 

THE PICTURE OF THE DESERT. 

" A picture, good ! my brow I shade within the hollow of my 

hand ; 
The curtains of mine eyes I close ! — Lo, there the desert's 

burning sand, 
The camping-places of my tribe, appear; arrayed in lurid 

light, 
Robed in her burning widow-weeds, Sahara bursts upon my 

sight. 

" Who travelled through the lion-land ? Of claws and hoofs 
the prints appear ; 
Timbuctoo's caravan ! Behold, far in the distance gleams 
the spear ; 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 47 

There banners wave, while through the dust the Emir's 

purple floats along, 
And with a sober stateliness the camel's head o'erpeers the 

throng. 

" Where sand and sky together blend, onward in close array 

they sweep ; 
Now the horizon's sulphurous mist ingulfs them in its 

lurid deep ; 
The vestige broad thou still canst trace distinctly of the 

flying train, 
As gleam, at intervals, dispersed, their relics o'er the 

sandy plain. 

" Look yonder ! like a milestone grim, a dromedary dead lies 

there ; 
Upon the prostrate bulk are perched, with naked throats, 

a vulture pair ; 
Intent upon their ghastly meal, for yon rich turban what 

care they, 
By some young Arab left behind in that wild journey's 

desperate way ? 

" Fragments of costly housings float the tamarisk's thorny 

bushes round ; 
And near, an empty water-skin lies foul and gaping on the 

ground ; 
Who 's he who treads it 'neath his feet ? The Sheik it is, 

with dusky hair, 
The Sheik of Biledulgerid, who gazes round with frantic 



" He closed the rear ; his charger fell ; behind he 's left upon 
the sand : 
O'ercome with thirst, his favorite wife doth from his girdle 
drooping hang ; 



48 INTRODUCTION TO 

How flashed her eye as she erewhile in triumph rode before 

her lord ! 
Across the waste he trails her now, as from a baldric trails 

a sword. 

V The burning sand, swept o'er at night by the grim lion's 

tail alone, 
Is by the waving tresses now of yonder helpless woman 

strown ; 
It gathers in her tangled locks, dries on her lip the spicy 

dew, 
And with its sharp and cruel flints her tender skin it pierces 

through. 

*' And now, alas ! the Emir fails. — Throbs in his veins the 

boiling blood, 
His eyeballs glare, — in lurid lines swells on his brow the 

purple flood ! 
With one last kiss, one burning kiss, he wakes to life his 

Moorish bride, 
Then flings himself, with frantic curse, on the red desert by 

her side. 

" But she, amazed, looks wildly round. ' My lord, awake ! 

Thou sleepest here ? 
The sky, but now like molten brass, like polished steel 

gleams cold and clear. 
Where now the desert's yellow glare ? A radiance gleams 

mine eyes before, 
It sparkles like the sea, whose wave at Algiers breaks along 

the shore. 

" ' Its grateful moisture cools my brow ; — yonder its flowing 
waters gleam ; — 
A giant mirror, there it shines ; — awake ! perchance 't is 
Nilus' stream ; 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 49 

Yet no, we travelled south I 'm sure ; the Senegal it then 

must be ; — 
Or are yon heaving waves indeed the billows of the surging 

sea? 

*' * No matter ! it is water still ! Awake, my lord ! O let us 

hence ! 
My robe I 've cast aside ; O come, this deadly scorching fire 

to quench ! 
A cooling draught, a quickening bath, will with new strength 

our limbs indue ; 
Yon towering fortress once achieved, to all our toils we '11 

bid adieu ! 

w ' Its crimson banners proudly wave defiance round its por- 
tals grey ; 

Its ramparts bristled o'er with spears, — its mosques within, 
— I all survey ; 

High-masted vessels in the roads securely ride, in stately 
rows ; 

Its shops and caravansaries a crowd of pilgrims overflows. 

" ' My tongue is parched ! "Wake up, beloved ! Already nears 

the twilight now ! ' 
He lifts his eye, and murmurs hoarse, ' It is the desert's 

mocking show ! 
More cruel than the hot Simoom ! Of wicked fiends the 

barbarous play — ' 
He stops, — the baseless vision fades, — she sinks upon his 

lifeless clay." 

The passion of love is copiously treated by the bards 
of Arabia ; their works on this subject abound with as- 
tonishing images, and are filled with a fire of tenderness 
beyond all rivalry. One poet says to his mistress : ' In 



50 INTRODUCTION TO 

the day of resurrection all the lovers shall be ranged 
under niy banner, all the beauties under thine." An- 
other says of his : " One night she spread' forth three 
locks of her hair, and so were exhibited four nights 
together." Shemselnihar takes a lute and sings : " The 
sun beams from thine eyes, the Pleiades shine from 
thy mouth, and the full moon rises from the upper bor- 
der of thy vest. From the model of thy form hath 
God originated beauty, and the fragrance of the zephyr 
from thy disposition." 

The descriptive power and fidelity of Arabic poetry 
in setting forth both the life of the people and the 
scenery of the clime are remarkable. It conjures up 
visions of tawny brows, flowing beards, soft eyes, pic- 
turesque turbans, pawing chargers, and patient drome- 
daries. We seem to be there. It is the land of the 
date-tree and the fountain, the ostrich and the giraffe, 
the tent and the caravan. It is the home of the simoom 
and the mirage. It is the world of the desert and the 
stars. Hospitality waves her torch through the night 
to win the wanderer to be a guest. Reeking vengeance, 
with bloodshot eyes and dripping blade, dashes by." on 
a stallion shod with fire." The very picture, embodi- 
ment, breath, blaze, of all this is in the lyrics of the 
Bedouin bards. The richness of their language, and 
something of the character of the people who use it, are 
shown in the fact that it has eighty names for honey, 
five hundred for the lion, and a thousand for the sword ! 

THE SPIEIT-CARAVAN. 

" On the desert sand bivouacked and silent lay our motley 
throng ; 
My Bedouin Arabs slumbered the unbridled steeds among ; 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 51 

Far away the moonlight quivered o'er old Nilus' mountain 

chain, 
Dromedary-bones lay bleaching, scattered o'er the sandy 

plain. 

" Wide awake I lay : — my caftan's ample folds were o'er me 

spread, 
Covering breast and feet ; my saddle formed a pillow for 

my head ; 
There I thrust my purse, together with the date-tree's fruit ; 

and near 
I had placed my naked sabre, with my musket and my 

spear. 

" All was silent, save the rustle by the dying embers made, 
Save the wheeling of the vulture, from its distant eyrie 

strayed ; 
Save when an impatient charger, firmly tethered, pawed the 

ground, 
Or a rider snatched his weapons, dreaming in his sleep 

profound. 

" Lo ! the firm earth trembles ! yonder, ghastly shapes are 

gliding by 
Through the moonlight; o'er the desert savage beasts in 

terror fly ! 
Snorting rear the frightened chargers ; — grasps his flag our 

leader bold, — 
'Lo! the spirit caravan,' he murmurs, and lets go his 

hold. 

" Ay, they come ! — Before the camels see the spectral driv- 
ers glide ; 
Seated on their stately saddles, unveiled women proudly 
ride; 



52 INTRODUCTION TO 

By their side appear young maidens, bearing pitchers, like 

Rebecca ; 
Troops of phantom riders follow, — on they rush with speed 

to Mecca. 

" Still they come ! — the train is endless, — who can count 

the number o'er ? 
See, the scattered bones of camels rise, instinct with life 

once more ; 
And the whirling sand, whose masses o'er the desert darkly 

rolled, 
Changes into dusky drivers, who the camel-bridles hold. 

" This the night when all the creatures, swallowed by the 

sandy main, 
Whose storm-driven dust distressed us, as we crossed the 

burning plain, 
And whose mouldering skulls were trodden 'neath our 

horses' hoofs to-day, 
Come to life, and in procession haste at Mecca's shrine to 

pray. 

" More, still more ! — not yet have passed us those who close 
the ghastly train ; 

And the first appear already, flying back with slackened 
rein; 

From the mountains, lying yonder, wliirling with the light- 
ning's speed, 

They have passed to Babelmandib, ere I could unloose my 
steed. 

" Now make ready ! — loose the chargers, — every rider in 
his seat ! 
Tremble not as the distracted herd, when they the lion 
meet ! 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 53 

Let the spectres' flowing garments touch you as they rustle 

by; 
Allah call ! — and on their camels let the phantom riders 

fly! 

" Wait until the morning breezes in your turbans wave the 

plumes, 
Morning red and morning breezes will consign them to 

their tombs ; 
Back to dust these nightly pilgrims will return at break of 

day; 
Lo ! it glimmers, and my charger greets it with a joyous 

neigh." 

There is something romantic and touching in an 
Arab's proud and tender love for his horse. A young 
warrior is slaughtered in battle : when his steed comes 
home, his mother takes its hoof in her bosom, and kisses 
its head, and presses her cheek against its neck. Says 
Hassan to his mare, in Bayard Taylor's fine and faith- 
ful lines : — 

" Come, my beauty ! come, my desert darling ! 
On my shoulder lay thy glossy head ! 
Pear not, though the barley-sack be empty, 
Here 's the half of Hassan's scanty bread. 

" Bend thy forehead now, to take my kisses ! 
Lift in love thy dark and splendid eye : 
Thou art gkd when Hassan mounts the saddle, — 
Thou art proud he owns thee : so am I. 

" We have seen Damascus, O my beauty ! 
And the splendor of the Pashas there : 
What 's their pomp and riches ? Why, I would not 
Take them for a handful of thy hair ! " 



54 INTRODUCTION TO 

Next to his mistress and his steed the Arab loves the 
palm-tree. I have read an Arab poem which, in a hun- 
dred and thirty-six couplets, celebrates the hundred and 
thirty-six uses to which the leaves and fibres of the 
various palms are applied. 

Turning to Persian poetry, we are at once con- 
fronted by the Shah Nameh, Firdousi's immortal epic. 
"When the humble Firdousi came from his garden at TVs 
to the Sultan's residence, the three court poets saw 
him coming, and thought by a trick to shame him away. 
As he approached, they told him that they conversed 
with no one unless, when they had recited three verses, 
he could supply a rhyme to the third line. They had 
agreed to end that line with a word having but one 
rhyme in the language, the name of a legendary hero. 
The first, addressing a beautiful maid, says : — 

" The light of the moon to thy splendor is weak " ; 
The second adds : 

" The rose is eclipsed by the bloom of thy cheek " : 
Then the third continues : 

" Thine eyelashes dart through the folds of the joshun " ; 
Firdousi instantly subjoins : 

" Like the javelin of Giw in the battle with Poshun." 
Surprised and delighted, the worthy trio introduced the 
stranger to Mahmoud, who was so • pleased with his tal- 
ents and manners that he soon employed him to versify 
the ancient history and myths of the nation. The re- 
sult was that great poem, which is now read in so many 
languages, and whose perpetual fame is secure. The 
Shah Nameh is a structure of fable and exaggeration on 
a basis of historic fact. It abounds with giants, demons, 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 55 

prodigies, magicians, and miraculous monstrosities, but 
at the same time has many episodes of marvellous puri- 
ty, elegance, and interest, and is crowded with rare gems 
both of thought and rhetoric. A writer familiar with 
the original Persian of this work tells us, that " from be- 
ginning to end it is one unbroken current of exquisite 
melody. Verse after verse ripples on the ear, and 
washes up its tribute of rhyme ; and we stand, as it 
were, on the shore, and gaze with wonder into the world 
that lies buried beneath, — a world of feeling, and 
thought, and action, that has passed away from earth's 
memory for ever, whilst its palaces and heroes are dim- 
ly seen mirrored below, as in the enchanted lake of 
the Arabian story." One of the most beautiful epi- 
sodes in the Shah Nameh — the story of Sohrab — 
has been best put into English by Matthew Arnold. It 
is, to say the least, in all the choicest qualities of poetry 
fully equal to any passage of the same length in Ho- 
mer's Iliad. Firdousi closes the history of Feridun, 
the most virtuous of his heroes, with this forcible appli- 
cation of a beautiful moral : — 

" Yet Feridun was not an angel, 
Nor was he formed of musk or ambergris : 
He gained his fame by justice and generosity. 
Be thou generous and just, and thou art a Feridun." 

When Firdousi had finished his gigantic task, and laid 
the magnificent result — sixty thousand rhymed coup- 
lets — at the feet of the Sultan, whose mind had been 
poisoned against him by his envious rivals, his royal 
master insulted him by sending a petty sum of copper 
money as his reward. The poet's wounded spirit re- 



56 INTRODUCTION TO 

coiled in bitter anger. He wrote a most stinging sat- 
ire, and, having sent it to the ungrateful monarch, fled 
from the empire. The following specimen of this re- 
markable invective is very striking. I quote from a 
valuable series of articles on Persian Poetry to be found 
in Fraser's Magazine, Vols. XVIII. -XXI. 

" In Mahmoud hope not thou to find 
One virtue to redeem his mind ! 
His thoughts no generous transports fill, 
To truth, to faith, to justice, chill ! 
Son of a slave, his diadem 
In vain may glow with many a gem : 
Exalted high in power and place, 
Out bursts the meanness of his race ! 

" Take of some bitter tree a shoot, 
In Eden's gardens plant the root ; 
Let waters from th' eternal spring 
Amidst the boughs their incense fling : 
Though bathed and showered with honey-dew, 
Its native baseness springs to view : 
After long care and anxious skill 
The fruit it bears is bitter still ! 

" Place thou within the spicy nest, 
Where the bright phoenix loves to rest, 
A raven's egg, and mark thou well, 
When the vile bird has chipped his shell, 
Though fed with grains from trees that grow 
Where Salsebil's pure waters flow, 
Though airs from Gabriel's wing may rise, 
To fan the cradle where he lies, 
Though long their patient cares endure, 
He proves at last a bird impure ! 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 57 

" A viper nurtured in a bed 
AVhere roses all their beauties spread, 
Though nourished with the drops alone 
Of waves that spring from Allah's throne, 
Is still a poisonous reptile found, 
And with its venom' taints the ground ! 

" Hadst thou, degenerate prince ! but shown 
One single virtue as thy own, 
Then thou hadst gloried in my fame, 
And built thyself a deathless name. 
O Mahmoud ! though thou fear me not, 
Heaven's vengeance will not be forgot ; 
Shrink, tyrant ! from my words of fire, 
And wither in a poet's ire ! " 

As we enter the realm of Persian lyric poetry, we 
approach the most intoxicating cordials and the dainti- 
est viands anywhere furnished at the world-banquet of 
literature. The eye is inebriate at sight of ruby vases 
filled with honey, and crystal goblets brimmed with 
thick-purpled wine, and golden baskets full of sliced 
pomegranates. The flavor of nectarines, tamarinds, 
and figs is on the tongue. If we lean from the balcony 
for relief, a breeze comes wafted over acres of roses, and 
the air is full of the odor of cloves and precious gums, 
sandal-wood and cedar, frankincense forests, and cinna- 
mon groves. A Persian poet of rich genius, who wrote 
but little, being asked why he did not produce more, re- 
plied : " I intended, as soon as I should reach the rose- 
trees, to fill my lap, and bring presents for my compan- 
ions ; but when I arrived there, the fragrance of the 
roses so intoxicated me that the skirt of my robe slipped 
from my hands." The true Persian poet, as Mirtsa 



58 INTRODUCTION TO 

SchafFy declares, in his songs burns sun, moon, and stars 
as sacrifice on the altar of beauty. Every kiss the maid- 
ens plant on his lips springs up as a song in his mouth. 
One describes a battle-field looking as if the earth was 
covered over with crimson tulips. The evening star is 
a moth, and the moon the lamp. A devotee in a dream 
heard the cherubs in heaven softly singing the poetry of 
Saadi, and saying, " This couplet of Saadi is worth the 
hymns of angel-worship for a whole year." Upon awak- 
ing he went to Saadi and found him fervently reciting 
the following lines : — 

" To pious minds each verdant leaf displays 
A volume teeming with th' Almighty's praise." 

The Persian seems born with a lyre in his hand and 
a song on his tongue. It is related of the celebrated 
poet, Abderrahman, son of Hissan, that when an infant, 
being stung by a wasp, he ran to his father, crying in 
spontaneous verse : 

Father, I have been stung by an insect I know not, but his 

breast 
With white and yellow spots is covered, like the border of my 

vest. 

The tones of the Persian harp are extremely tender 
and pathetic. They seem to sigh, Wherever sad Mem- 
ory walks in the halls of the past, her step wakes the 
echoes of long-lost joys. They frequently accord with 
a strain like this : ■ — 

"I saw some handfuls of the rose in bloom, 
With bands of grass suspended from a dome. 
I said, ' What means this worthless grass, that it 
Should in the rose's fairy circle sit ? ' 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 59 

Then wept the grass, and said : ' Be still ! and know 
The kind their old associates ne'er forego. 
Mine is no beauty, hue, or fragrance, true ! 
But in the garden of niy Lord I grew ! ' " 

Among the epic poets of Persia, Firdousi is chief ; 
among the romantic poets, Nisami ; among the moral- 
didactic, Saadi ; among the purely lyric, Hafiz ; among 
the religious, Ferideddin Attar. In their respective 
provinces these indisputably and unapproached bear 
the palm. 

There are three objects as famous in Persian poetry 
as the Holy Grail in the legends of King Arthur and 
the Knights of the Round Table. One is Jemschid's cup. 
This was a magic goblet with seven circling lines divid- 
ing it into seven compartments, corresponding to the 
seven worlds. Filling it with wine, Jemschid had only 
to look in it and behold all the events of the creation, 
past, present, and future. 

" It is that goblet round whose wondrous rim 
The enrapturing secrets of creation swim." 

Firdousi has described Jemschid upon a certain oc- 
casion consulting this cup. 

" The vessel in his hand revolving shook, 

And earth's whole surface glimmered on his look : 

Nor less the secrets of the starry sphere, 

The what, and when, and how, depicted clear: 

From orbs celestial to the blade of grass, 

All nature floated in the magic glass." 

Another is Solomon's signet-ring. Such were the in- 
credible virtues of this little talisman, that the touch of 
it exorcised all evil spirits, commanded the instant pres- 
ence and services of the Genii, laid every secret bare, 



60 INTRODUCTION TO 

and gave its possessor almost unlimited powers of 
knowledge, dominion, and performance. The third is 
Iskander's mirror. By looking on this the future was 
revealed, unknown climes brought to view, and what- 
ever its owner wished made visible. By means of this 
glass, Alexander — for the Oriental Iskander is no 
other — accomplished the expedition to Paradise, so 
celebrated in the mythic annals of the East. There is 
scarcely any end to the allusions and anecdotes referring 
to these three wondrous objects. 

There are likewise three pairs of lovers whose court- 
ship and fortunes are staple subjects with the Persian 
bards. Hatifi is thought to have best sung the loves of 
Leila and Majnun. Nisami is identified with the finest 
portrayal of the affection and fate of Khosru and Shi- 
reen. And Jami has, in his telling of the story of Jo- 
seph and Zuleika, distanced all rivals. But on each of 
the three pairs scores of distinguished lyrists have tried 
their powers. In Nisami's Khosru and Shire en occurs 
the remarkable episode of Ferhad. Ferhad was a 
sculptor of transcendent genius, who, from his passionate 
love for Shireen, was a troublesome rival to Khosru. 
The king, to get rid of his presence by engaging him in 
an impossible task, promised that if he would, unaided, 
cut through the impassable mountain of Beysitoun a 
channel for a river, and hew all the masses of rock into 
statues, the lovely maid he adored should be the reward 
of his labors. The slave of love accepted the condition. 
The enamored statuary commenced his work, crying, 
every time he struck the rock, " Alas, Shireen ! " 

" On lofty Beysitoun the lingering sun 
Looks down on ceaseless labors, long begun ; 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 61 



The mountain trembles to the echoing sound 

Of falling rocks that from her sides rebound. 

Each day, all respite, all repose, denied, 

Without a pause the thundering strokes are plied ; 

The mist of night around the summits coils, 

But still Ferhad, the lover-artist, toils. 

And still, the flashes of his axe between, 

He sighs to every wind, ' Alas, Shireen ! ' 

A hundred arms are weak one block to move 

Of thousands moulded by the hand of love 

Into fantastic shapes and forms of grace, 

That crowd each nook of that majestic place. 

The piles give way, the rocky peaks divide, 

The stream comes gushing on, a foaming tide, — 

A mighty work for ages to remain, 

The token of his passion and his pain. 

As flows the milky flood from Allah's throne, 

Rushes the torrent from the yielding stone. 

And, sculptured there, amazed, stern Khosru stands, 

And frowning sees obeyed his harsh commands : 

While she, the fair beloved, with being rife, 

Awakes from glowing marble into life. 

O hapless youth ! O toil repaid by woe ! 

A king thy rival, and the world thy foe. 

Will she wealth, splendor, pomp, for thee resign, 

And only genius, truth, and passion thine ? 

Around the pair, lo ! chiselled courtiers wait, 

And slaves and pages grouped in solemn state ; 

From columns imaged wreaths their garlands throw, 

And fretted roofs with stars appear to glow : 

Fresh leaves and blossoms seem around to spring, 

And feathered throngs their loves seem murmuring. 

The hands of Peris might have wrought those stems 

Where dew-drops hang their fragile diadems, 

And strings of pearl and sharp-cut diamonds shine, 

New from the wave, or recent from the mine. 



62 INTRODUCTION TO 

' Alas, Shlreen ! ' at every stroke he cries, — 
At every stroke fresh miracles arise. 
1 For thee my life one ceaseless toil has been ; 
Inspire my soul anew, — alas, Shireen ! ' " 

Ferhfid achieved his task, and with such exquisite 
skill and taste, that the most expert statuaries and 
polishers from every part of the world, coming to be- 
hold his works, bit the finger of astonishment and were 
confounded at the genius of that distracted lover. Fer- 
had was pausing, weary, at the completion of his toil, 
with his chisel in his hand, when his treacherous rival 
sent him the false message that Shireen was dead. 

" He heard the fatal news, — no word, no groan ; 
He spoke not, moved not, stood transfixed to stone. 
Then, with a frenzied start, he raised on high 
His arms, and wildly tossed them towards the sky ; 
Far in the wide expanse his axe he flung, 
And from the precipice at once he sprung. 
The rocks, the sculptured caves, the valleys green, 
Sent back his dying cry, — ' Alas, Shireen ! ' " 

Furthermore, there are five standard allegories of 
hapless love which the poets of Persia have wrought 
out in innumerable forms of passionate imagery and 
beauteous versification. The constant Nightingale loves 
the Rose, and when she perishes, his laments pain the 
evening air, and fill grove and garden with heart-break- 
ing melodies. 

" The bulbul wanders to and fro ; 
His wing is weak, his note is low ; 
In vain he wakes his song, 
Since she he wooed so long 
No more sheds perfume on the air around : 
Her hundred leaves lie scattered on the ground ; 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 63 

Or if one solitary bud remain, 
The bloom is past, and only left the stain. 
Where once amidst the blossoms was his nest, 
Thorns raise their daggers at his bleeding breast." 

The Lily loves the Sun, and opens the dazzling 
white of her bosom to his greeting smile as he rises ; 
and when he sets, covers her face and droops her head, 
forlorn, all night. The Lotus loves the Moon; and 
soon as his silver light gilds the waters, she lifts her 
snowy neck above the tide, and sheds the perfume of 
her amorous breath over the waves, till shaming day 
ends her dalliance. The Ball loves the Bat, and still 
solicitingly returns, flying to meet him, however oft and 
cruelly repulsed and spurned. The Moth and the Ta- 
per are two fond lovers separated by the fierce flame. 
He draws her with resistless invitation : she flies with 
reckless resolve ; the merciless flame devours her, and 
melts him away. — • -^ 

From this rapid look at the wealth of the Iranian 
bards, let us now turn, for a moment, to the Sufis. The 
circulating life-sap of Sufism is piety, its efflorescence is 
poetry, which it yields in spontaneous abundance of 
brilliant bloom. The Sufis are a sect, of comparatively 
modern origin, which sprouted from the trunk of Mo- 
hammedanism, where the mysticism of India was graft- 
ed into it, and was nourished in the passionate sluggish- 
ness of Eastern reverie by the soothing dreams and 
fanatic fires of that wondrous race and clime. They 
flourished chiefly in Persia, but rightfully claimed as 
virtual members of their sect the most distinguished 
religionists, philosophers, and poets of the whole Orient 
for thousands of years ; because all these agreed with 



64 INTRODUCTION TO 

them in the fundamental principles of their system of 
thought, rules of life, and aims of aspiration. A de- 
tailed account of the Sufis may be found in Sir John 
Malcolm's History of Persia, and a good sketch of their 
dogmas is presented in Tholuck's Siifism ; but the best 
exposition of their experience and literary expression 
is afforded by Tholuck's Anthology from the Oriental 
Mystics. The Sufis are a sect of meditative devotees, 
whose absorption in spiritual contemplations and hal- 
lowed raptures is unparalleled, whose piety penetrates to 
a depth where the mind gropingly staggers among the 
bottomless roots of being, in mazes of wonder and de- 
light, and reaches to a height where the soul loses itself 
among the roofless immensities of glory in a bedazzled 
and boundless ecstasy. As a specimen, read 

THE SUCCESSFUL SEAECH. 

" I was ere a name had been named upon earth, — 

Ere one trace yet existed of aught that has birth, — 

When the locks of the Loved One streamed forth for a sign, 

And being was none save the Presence Divine ! 

Ere the veil of the flesh for Messiah was wrought, 

To the Godhead I bowed in prostration of thought ! 

I measured intently, I pondered with heed, 

(But ah fruitless my labor !) the Cross and its Creed. 

To the Pagod I rushed, and the Magian's shrine, 

But my eye caught no glimpse of a glory divine ! 

The reins of research to the Caaba I bent, 

Whither hopefully thronging the old and young went ; 

Candahar and Herat searched I wistfully through, 

Nor above nor beneath came the Loved One to view ! 

I toiled to the summit, wilpy pathless, and lone, 

Of the globe-girding Kaf, but the Phoenix had flown. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 65 

The seventh earth I traversed, the seventh heaven explored, 

But in neither discerned I the Court of the Lord ! 

I questioned the Pen and the Tablet of Fate, 

But they whispered not where He pavilions his state. 

My vision I strained, but my God-scanning eye 

No trace that to Godhead belongs could descry. 

But when I my glance turned within my own breast, 

Lo ! the vainly sought Loved One, the Godhead confessed 1 

In the whirl of its transport my spirit was tossed 

Till each atom of separate being I lost : 

And the bright sun of Tauriz a madder than me, 

Or a wilder, hath never yet seen, nor shall see." 

Their aim is a union with God so intimate that it be- 
comes identity, wherein thought is an involuntary intui- 
tive grasp and fruition of universal truth ; and wherein 
feeling is a dissolving and infinite delirium filled with the 
perfect calmness of unfathomable bliss. For the grad- 
ual training of the soul unto the winning of this incom- 
parable and last attainment, they have devised a system 
of means whose simplicity and complication, adapted 
completeness, — regular stages of initiation and grada- 
tions of experience, spiritual frictions and magnetisms, 
stimulants for some faculties, soporifics for others, di- 
versified disciplines and educations for all, — are aston- 
ishingly fitted to lead the disciple regularly on to the 
marvellous result they desire. And it could scarcely 
fail of effect, if faithfully tried, even in the colder airs 
and on the more phlegmatic natures of the West. 
How finely drawn the subtile experience and beautiful 
thought in the following anecdote of Rabia, the cele- 
brated Mohammedan saint ! We give it as told after 
Tholuck by James Freeman Clarke. 



66 INTRODUCTION TO 



THE THREE STAGES OF PIETY. 

Rabia, sick upon her bed, 
By two saints was visited, 
Holy Malik, Hassan wise, - — ■ 
Men of mark in Moslem eyes. 
Hassan says, " "Whose prayer is pure 
Will God's chastisements endure." 
Malik from a deeper sense 
Uttered his experience : 
" He who loves his Master's choice 
Will in chastisement rejoice." 
Rabia saw some selfish will 
In their maxims lingering still, 
And replied, •' O men of grace ! 
He who sees his Master's face 
Will not in his prayer recall 
That he is chastised at all." 

The passage through the classified degrees of attain- 
ment in the mystic life they call "the travelling by 
steps up to heaven." 

The Sufi poets are innumerable, but their universally 
acknowledged head and master is the celebrated Mew- 
lana Dschelaleddin Rumi, the greatest mystic poet of 
the whole Orient, the oracle of the devotees, the night- 
ingale of the contemplative life, the lawgiver in piety, 
the founder of the principal order of Dervishes, and au- 
thor of the Mesnavi. The Mesnavi is a vast and famous 
double-rhymed ascetic poem, an inexhaustible coffer of 
Sufi lore and gems. From the banks of the Ganges to 
the Bosporus it is the hand-book of all Sufis, the law- 
book and ritual of all the mystics. From this work, 
says Von Hammer, this volcanic eruption of inspira- 






ORIENTAL POETRY. 67 

tion, breaks forth the inmost peculiarity of Oriental 
mysticism, a solitary self-direction towards the loftiest 
goal of perfection over the contemplative way of Divine 
Love. On the wings of the highest religious inspira- 
tion, which vi<e far beyond all outer forms of positive 
religion, adoring the Eternal Essence, in its completest 
abstraction from everything earthly, as the purest foun- 
tain of eternal light, soars Dschelaleddin. above suns 
and moons, above time and space, above creation and 
fate, beyond the primeval decrees of destiny, beyond 
the sentence of the last judgment, forth into infinitude, 
where he melts into unity with the Endless Being as 
endless worshipper, and into the Boundless Love as 
boundless lover, ever forgetful of himself, having the 
Absolute in view ; and, instead of closing his poems, like 
other great poets, with his own name, he always makes 
the name of his mystic master the keystone to the dia- 
mond arch of his fire-ghazels. 

The Sufi turns inward for his aims and joys, with a 
scornful superiority to all visible rituals. He says that 
one hour of secret meditation and silent love is of more 
avail than seventy thousand years of outward worship. 
When, with great toils and sufferings, Rabia had effect- 
ed the pilgrimage to Mecca, and saw the people praying 
around the Caaba, she beat her breast and cried aloud : — 

" O heart ! weak follower of the weak, 
That thou shouldst traverse land and sea, 
In this far place that God to seek 
Who long ago had come to thee ! " 

When a knowledge of the Supreme has been attained, 
there is no need of ceremonies j when a soft, refreshing 



68 INTRODUCTION TO 

breeze blows from the south, there is no need of a fan. 
As an illustration of this phase may be perused the 
following fine poem translated by Professor Falconer. 
It may be fitly entitled 

THE RELIGION OF THE HEART. 

" Beats there a heart within that breast of thine ? 
Then compass reverently its sacred shrine : 
For the true spiritual Caaba is the heart, 
And no proud pile of perishable art. 
When God ordained the pilgrim rite, that sign 
Was meant to lead thy thought to things divine. 
A thousand times he treads that round in vain 
W"ho e'en one human heart would idly pain. 
Leave wealth behind ; bring God thy heart, — best light 
To guide thy wavering steps through life's dark night. 
God spurns the riches of a thousand coffers, 
And says, ' My chosen is he his heart who offers. 
Nor gold nor silver seek I, but above 
All gifts the heart, and buy it with my love ; 
Yea, one sad, contrite heart, which men despise, 
More than my throne and fixed decree I prize.' 
Then think not lowly of thy heart, though lowly, 
For holy is it, and there dwells the Holy. 
God's presence-chamber is the human breast ; 
Ah happy he whose heart holds such a guest ! " 

Every consistent Sufi is an optimist, one who denies 
the reality of evil. In his poems he mingles the fight- 
ing limits of light and darkness, dissolves the rocky 
boundaries of right and wrong, and buries all clamor- 
ous distinctions beneath the level sea of pantheistic uni- 
ty. All drops, however driven forth, scalded in deserts 
or frozen on mountains, belong to the ocean, and, by 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 69 

omnipotent attractions, will finally find their way home, 
to repose and flow with the tidal uniformity of the all- 
embracing deep. Vice and virtue, purity and corrup- 
tion, birth and decay, cruelty and tenderness, — all 
antagonistic elements and processes are equally the 
manifestations and workings of God. From him all 
spirits proceeded, and to him they are ever returning ; 
or in the temple, or on the gibbet, groaning in sinks of 
degraded sensuality and want, or exulting in palaces of 
refinement and splendor, they are equally climbing by 
irresistible affinities and propulsions towards their na- 
tive seat in Deity. 

" Yet spake yon purple mountain, 
Yet said yon ancient wood, 
That night or day, that love or crime, 
Leads all souls to the good. " 

This optimistic denial of the reality of evil is fre- 
quently brought out by the Sufi, with a sudden empha- 
sis, an unflinching thoroughness, in forms and guises of 
mystic reason, wondrous beauty, and bewildering sub- 
tlety, which must astound a Christian moralist. The 
Sufi's brain is a magazine of transcendent mysteries and 
prodigious conceits, his faith an ocean of dusky bliss, 
his illuminated tenderness a beacon of the Infinite 
Light. 

An important trait of the Sufi belief is contained in 
the idea, zealously held by them all, and suffusing most 
of their poetry, that death is ecstasy. 

" A lover on his death-bed lay, and o'er his face the while, 
Though anguish racked his wasted frame, there swept a 
fitful smile : 



70 INTRODUCTION TO 

A flush his sunken cheek o'erspread, and to his faded 
eye 

Came light that less spoke earthly bliss than heaven- 
breathed ecstasy. 

And one that weeping o'er him bent, and watched the ebb- 
ing breath, 

Marvelled what thought gave mastery o'er that dread hour 
of death. 

1 Ah, when the Fair, adored through life, lifts up at length,' 
he cried, 

' The veil that sought from mortal eye immortal charms to 
hide, 

'T is thus true lovers, fevered long with that sweet mystic 
fire, 

Exulting meet the Loved One's gaze, and in that glance 
expire ! ' " 

Death plunges the heated, weary, thirsting soul into 
a flood of delicious relief and repose, the unalloyed and 
ceaseless fruition of a divine delight. The past was one 
sweet ocean of Divinity, the future is another, the pres- 
ent interposes, a blistering and dreary strand, between. 
To their hushed ear 

" Some Seraph whispers from the verge of space : 
* Make not these hollow shores thy resting-place ; 
Born to a portion in thy Maker's bliss, 
Why linger idly in a waste like this ? ' ". 

From their heavenly yearning breaks the exclama- 
tion, " O the bliss of that day when I shall depart from 
this desolate mansion, and my soul shall find rest, and I 
shall follow the traces of my Beloved ! " From their 
exhilarating anticipation of pleasure and glory yet un- 
tasted and unglimpsed behind the veil, rises the rejoice- 
ful cry, — 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 71 

" Blest time that frees me from the bonds of clay, 
To track the Lost One through his airy course : 
Like motes exulting in their parent ray, 
My kindling spirit rushes to its Source ! " 

There are thoughts and sentiments in these poems 
which ought, however suggested, and wherever recog- 
nized, to smite us with subduing wonder, and to fill us 
with sympathetic longing ; which ought magnetically to 
strike with opening ! i'fe and desire that side of our souls 
which looks upon infinity and eternity, and where- 
through, in favored hours, we thrill to the visiting in- 
fluences of boundless Mystery and nameless Love, with 
a rapture of calmness, a vision of heaven, a perfect com- 
munion of the Father, confessing with electric shudders 
of awe and joy the motions of the Spirit, as God's hand 
wanders solemnly among the chords of the heart. 

In conclusion, I will specify the principal traits which 
belong in a distinctive degree to Oriental poetry. The 
first one that attracts notice is an airy, winged, exult- 
ant liberty of spirit, an unimpeded largeness and ease 
of movement, an intense enthusiasm. This gives birth 
to extravagance. Compare in this respect the Arabian 
Nights' Entertainments with the Waverley Novels. Its 
lower form is a revelling or deliberate fancy, abounding 
in lawless conceits, sometimes puerile, sometimes amaz- 
ing. " The bird of understanding hath fled from the 
nest of my brain." " The sun in the zenith is a golden 
falcon hovering over his azure nest." The higher form 
of this trait is the spontaneous transport of an inspired 
and free imagination, producing the most stupendous 
conceptions, infusing a divine soul through all dead sub- 
stance, melting everything into its own moulds, filling a 



X 



72 INTRODUCTION TO 

new universe with new marvels of beauty and delight. 
Almost every page of true Eastern poetry illustrates 
this. " The world is a bud from the bower of God's 
beauty, the sun a spark from the light of his wisdom, 
and the sky a bubble«on the ocean of his power." The 
lover tells his mistress that had he been dead a thou- 
sand years, if she should walk over his grave his ashes 
would thrill as she passed, and his heart instantly blos- 
som through the sod into roses beneath her tread. Mah- 
moud says, " In the eye of a gnat sleeps an elephant ) 
in a kernel of corn already lie many thousands of har- 
vests ; in yon dew-drop as an exile the Euphrates is- 
banished ; in that mustard-seed, thy heart, thrones the 
Lord who inhabiteth immensity." This quickening 
faculty often gives a tremendous force to expression, 
as when Saadi addresses a mean villain in these 
terms : — 

" All would that wall with loathing fly 
Which bore impressed thy effigj ; 
And if thy lot in Eden fell, 
All others would make choice of Hell ! " 

A very striking peculiarity of the Oriental Muse in 
general is a singular copiousness of comparison. Noth- 
ing is too remote or near, too common or solitary, too 
sublime or trivial, to furnish a similitude with something 
else. A band of Mamlouks with drawn swords sur- 
round the house as the black surrounds the pupil of the 
eye. True these parallels are sometimes very trite and 
unmeaning, but they are often wonderfully subtile, felici- 
tous* and beautiful. The sun at dawn, rushing over 
the mountains, is a Hon chasing the black gazelle, night. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 73 

A hideous Object is ugly as a peacock's foot. A star- 
less night is black as the book of sins in the judgment- 
day. The lapwing waves its pinions towards the earth 
even as the Magi bow before the sacred fire. In the. 
heart of a bereaved unfortunate the vestiges of departed 
happiness are left as the ashes are left where a departed 
caravan once encamped. Almost every thought is 
clothed in a metaphor. Is greatness calm? 

" A stone makes not great rivers turbid grow : 
When saints are vexed, their shallowness they show ! " 

Has rarity a charm ? 

" Could every hailstone to a pearl be turned, 
Pearls in the mart like oyster-shells were spurned ! " 

When an avaricious man is to be described, we read : 

" If the sun on his table-cloth instead of dry bread lay, 
In all the world none would behold again the light of day ! " 

And when it is to be said that uncleanness or disease is 
remedilessly repulsive, we have this : 

" Ne'er will the orange, from the Sultan's hand 
Once on the .dunghill fallen, more there rest ; 
Though thirsty, none will water e'er demand, 
When ulcerated lips the jar have pressed ! " 

Upon the letter of his life every man finds the seal of 
God's mercy. Water is one in look and substance, but 
the glasses from which men drink it are many in shape 
and hue. All religions are diversities of the one true 
faith, as all colors are modifications of the one white 
light. 

The apologue, fable, or parable, — the conveyance of 
instruction or admonition in the form of a brief, striking 



74 INTRODUCTION TO 

story, — is characteristic of Eastern poetry as well as 
prose. This is well exemplified in the New Testament. 
It is also supposed that most of the fables of -ZEsop were 
imported from the earlier Indian literature, — though 
this has been denied by some, for instance, by Weber 
in his reply to Wagener's prize essay on the " Connec- 
tion between the Indian Fables and the Greek." But 
it is unquestionable that nearly all the poetic produc- 
tions of the East are crowded with brief, sweet, touch- 
ing, ingenious, hortatory apologues. And thousands 
of the happiest specimens of this kind of composition, 
known now among the modern nations of the Occident, 
were drawn from the vast stores of the Orient. In these 
stories the emphatic aphoristic tendency of the Eastern 
literary mind is almost everywhere displayed. " A gay 
experience of good fortune makes man shallow and 
frivolous ; deep grief makes him wise." 

" Should you a cistern with rose-water fill, 
A dog dropped in it would defile it still." 

"It is easier to dig a rooted mountain up with a 
needle, than to pluck pride from the heart." As an ex- 
emplification of this head I must here cite Mr. Clarke's 
admirable versification of the story, rendered from the 
Persian by Tholuck, called ]/ 

THE CALIPH AND SATAN. 

In heavy sleep the Caliph lay, 

When some one called, " Arise and pray I " 

The angry Caliph cried, " Who dare 
Rebuke his king for slighted prayer ? " 



ORIENTAL TOETRY. 75 

Then, from the corner of the room, 

A voice cut sharply through the gloom : — 

" My name is Satan. Rise ! obey 
Mohammed's law : Awake, and pray." 

" Thy words are good," the Caliph said, 
" But their intent I somewhat dread ; 

For matters cannot well be worse, 

Than when the thief says, ' Guard your purse.' 

I cannot trust your counsel, friend, 
It surely hides some wicked end." 

Said Satan : " Near the throne of God, 
In ages past, we devils trod ; 

Angels of light, to us 't was given 

To guide each wandering foot to Heaven. 

Not wholly lost is that first love, 
Nor those pure tastes we knew above. 

Roaming across a continent, 

The Tartar moves his shifting tent, 

But never quite forgets the day 
When in his father's arms he lay ; 

So we, once bathed in love divine, 
Recall the taste of that rich wine. 

God's finger rested on my brow, — 
That magic touch, I feel it now ! 

I fell, 't is true, — O ask not why ! 
For still to God I turn my eye ; 



76 INTRODUCTION TO 

It was a chance by which I fell ; 
Another takes me back from Hell. 

'T was but my envy of mankind, 
The envy of a loving mind. 

Jealous of men, I could not bear 
God's love with this new race to share. 

But yet God's tables open stand, 
His guests flock in from every land. 

Some kind act toward the race of men 
May toss us into Heaven again. 

A game of chess is all we see, — 
And God the player, pieces we. 

White, black, — queen, pawn, — 't is all the same, 
For on both sides he plays the game. 

Moved to and fro, from good to ill, 
We rise and fall as suits his will." 

The Caliph said : " If this be so 
I know not, but thy guile I know ; 

For how can I thy words believe, 
When even God thou didst deceive. 

A sea of lies art thou, — our sin 
Only a drop that sea within." 

" Not so," said Satan ; " I serve God, 
His angel now, and now his rod. 

In tempting, I both bless and curse, 
Make good men better, bad men worse. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 77 

Good coin is mixed with bad, my brother, 
I but distinguish one from th' other." 

" Granted," the Caliph said ; " but still 
You never tempt to good, but ill. 

Tell, then, the truth, for well I know 
You come as my most deadly foe." 

Loud laughed the fiend. " You know me well ; 
Therefore my purpose I will tell. 

If you had missed your prayer, I knew 
A swift repentance would ensue ; 

And such repentance would have been 
A good, outweighing far the sin. 

I chose this humbleness divine, 

Born out of fault, should not be thine ; 

Preferring prayers elate with pride, 
To sin with penitence allied." 

In these parables and anecdotes a cunning wit, an 
elevated ethical tenderness, and a sober under-tone are 
in general remarkably mingled. 

" Who doth the raven for a guide invite, 
Must marvel not on carcasses to light." 

Saadi was asked what he, an idle poet, was good for. 
In turn he inquired what was the use of the rose ; and 
on being told that it was good to be smelled, replied, 
" And I am good to smell it !" So our Concord Saadi 
sings, as if responding from to-day and America, over 
the ages and the sea, to the dead lyrist of Persia : — 



78 INTRODUCTION TO 

" Tell them, dear, if eyes were made for seeing, 
Beauty is its own excuse for being." 

It is said that, when Hafiz died, the jealous and bigoted 
Dervishes refused him burial, on the ground that he 
had been a reckless unbeliever, a blaspheming radical. 
The dispute rose high. At length it was agreed to 
take a thousand couplets miscellaneously from his poems, 
write them on slips of paper, place them in a vase, and 
let an innocent child draw from them, lottery-like, to 
decide what should be done. This verse came out : 

Fear not to come where Hafiz' lifeless body lies ; 
Though deeply sunk in sin, to heaven he will rise. 

Forthwith he was honorably interred. Sir William 

Jones says, "The Western poets afford no lesson of 

morality, no tender sentiment, which cannot be found in 

/the writings of the Eastern." 
W 
v A curious feature in the rhetoric of the Oriental 

bards is the employment of what may be called figures 
of impossibility, — or the paradox. Their pages fur- 
nish copious and surprising examples of this. A man 
who follows vice instead of virtue, folly rather than 
wisdom, is one who painfully turns up the barren sand 
with a golden plough, to sow weeds ! he mows a forest 
of lignum-vitae trees with a crystal scythe ! he puts a 
jewelled vase on a sandal-wood fire to cook a dish of 
husks or pebbles ! he devastates a beautiful date-garden 
to plant nettles there instead of the palms ! To indulge 
in crime and find peace instead of pain, profit and not 
punishment, is to milk an ox, eat a rhinoceros's eggs, 
and see a lion live in the lake like a fish ! " It is 
written in the sky, on the pages of the air, that good 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 79 

deeds shall be done to him who does good deeds to 
others.' 

Another very remarkable rhetorical peculiarity of a 
great deal of Oriental poetry is the most unrestricted 
use of erotic and bacchanalian phraseology to describe 
the religious life. 

" There 's never a spot in this wildered world 
Where His glory shines so dim 
But shapes are strung, and hearts are warm, 
And lips are sweet from Him." 

An uninitiated reader would often shrink and blush as if 
the wildest revels of debauchery were laid bare before 
him, when really the writer is treating of the rapt ex- 
periences and sacred secrets of piety, the intoxicating 
draughts and mystic endearments of the Divine Love. 
The world is a tavern, God the host and bar-tender, life 
the goblet he extends, and ecstasy the wine he pours. 
This imagery is carried out consistently through all its 
details, varied with unrivalled ingenuity, and adorned 
with infinite splendors of conceit and imagination. " He 
who is sobered when the winds of evening play on his 
brow, hath only partaken of earth's buttermilk, and not 
of God's wine." " He that is once inebriated with that 
wine, remains drunk until the resurrection-day." God 
is the lost lover, to be sought until found ; and the de- 
lirious fruition of all desire is undisturbed life in his 
cloudless presence and in his clasping arms. God is 
the infinite bodiless beauty and love, whose attributes 
darken and shimmer through the veils and illusions of 
nature, and whose embrace, uniting the soul to himself, 
is speechless bliss and endless rest. 

Again, this whole province of the world's literature is 



80 INTRODUCTION TO 

enveloped and saturated with mysticism, — mysticism 
of a bewildering quality and comprehensiveness. This 
mysticism, which is the soul's groping in a world of 
symbols after realities too vast and elusive, occupies the 
same place in Eastern literature that is filled by senti- 
mentality in the modern literature of the West. Boden- 
stedt affirms that that excessive sentimentality, or mor- 
bid vagueness of passion, which is so prevalent in the 
lyric poetry of Germany, is wholly unknown and un- 
intelligible to the Oriental poets. They always aim at 
some real, apprehensible object. But to reach this 
goal they set heaven and earth in motion. No meta- 
phor lies too far, no thought too high, for them. Where 
therefore our authors are sentimentalists, the authors of 
the East are mystics. They blend an all-confounding 
metaphysics of unknown subtilty and reach with a 
delicate, luxuriant, gorgeous sentiment and fancy, and 
plunge the productions of both in gulfs of inscrutable 
mystery, or suspend them in the darkness of insuffer- 
able light. 

" One lonely pilgrim, ere the world began, 
Traversed eternity to visit man, 
And on the precincts of the holy shrine 
Prepared an ample cup of love divine. 
The foaming draught, o'erflowing all the spheres, 
Dispersed them, whirling, for unnumbered years, 
While the rapt seraph, from its ardent brim, 
Rushed reeling back, and owned 't was not for him." 

The flood of the infinite rushes over, breaks down, swal- 
lows up, the fences and walls of the finite, and in the 
shoreless gleam of its wild waves every distinction van- 
ishes j nothing seems everything and all things seem 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 81 

nothing. God is at once the performer of the rite of de- 
votion, the rite itself, the implements by which it is per- 
formed, and the fruit which it bestows. For the highest 
qualities of devotional reflection and feeling it would be 
hard to find anything surpassing this description of 

THE CONTENTS OF PIETY. 

" Allah ! " was all night long the cry of one oppressed with 
care, 

Till softened was his heart, and sweet became his lips with 
prayer. 

Then near the subtle tempter stole, and spake : " Fond bab- 
bler, cease ! 

For not one ' Here am I ' has God e'er sent to give thee 
peace." 

With sorrow sank the suppliant's soul, and all his senses fled. 

But lo! at midnight, the good angel, Chiser, came, and said: 

" What ails thee now, my child, and why art thou afraid to 
pray ? 

And why thy former love dost thou repent ? declare and 
say." 

u Ah ! " cries he, " never once spake God to me, ' Here am 
I, son.' 

Cast off methinks I am, and warned far from his gracious 
throne." 

To whom the angel answered : " Hear the word from God 
I bear. 

' Go tell,' he said, ' yon mourner, sunk in sorrow and de- 
spair, 

Each " Lord, appear ! " thy lips pronounce, contains my 
"Here am I"; 

A special messenger I send beneath thine every sigh ; 

Thy love is but a girdle of the love I bear to thee, 

And sleeping in thy " Come, O Lord ! " there lies " Here', 
son ! " from me.'" 



82 INTRODUCTION TO 

Ribhu and Nidagha are conversing, when the kin<* 
rides by. The following dramatic dialogue ensues. " In- 
form me, Nidagha, which of these is the elephant, and 
which the king." " Why, Ribhu, you will observe that 
the elephant is underneath, the king is' above him." 
" Yes, but what is meant, Nidagha, by underneath, and 
by above ? " Nidagha knocks Ribhu down, jumps upon 
him, and says, " I am above, and you are underneath." 
" Very well," cries Ribhu, " now tell me which is you, 
and which is I ! " This mysticism in a thousand shapes 
and colors pervades the poetry of the East. 

Oriental poetry is further characterized — by nothing 
more so — by all that is involved in, accompanies, or 
flows from an ardent pantheism. God is all, and all is 
God. He is nature. His perfect face is printed and 
painted in every atom. 

" The realms of being to no other bow : 
Not only all are thine, but all are Thou." 

He is man. The motions of his dealing constitute the 
experience of the soul. 

" God's doors are men : the Pariah hind 
Admits thee to the perfect Mind." 

He dwells with all his infinitude in every heart. Many 
recondite comparisons and arguments -are brought for- 
ward to illustrate how myriads may each wholly possess 
him without interference. When a million men gaze 
on the moon, its perfect orb is given to every eye. Hu- 
man personality is execrated as a cruel chain, a black 
prison-wall. Nothing more distinguishes Eastern from 
Western thought than this passionate desecration of in- 
dividuality. All conscious spirits, once rent and dis- 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 83 

cerpted from the one primeval substance, and banished 
in material wanderings, pine in exile, and painfully 
yearn after the banished Lover, with unwearied fond- 
ness, until he relents, and discloses his presence ; then the 
smitten and entranced soul falters an instant, sinks into 
his embrace, and, lost from the bitter trials of personal 
being, is found in the everlasting ravishment of Divinity. 
Since God is the only dynamic reality, evil, of course, is 
only a shadow. 

" The world a mighty chess-board we should name ; 
And God both sides is playing of the game : 
Moses and Pharaoh seem opposed, for they 
Do thus God's greatness on two sides display j 
They seem opposed, but at the root are one, 
And each his part allotted has well done." 

The last characteristic of Oriental poetry to be men- 
tioned is this. One can read but little of it without no- 
ticing how it is filled with pensive, diversified, forcible, 
still-recurring contemplations of change, decay, and death, 
the vanity and transitoriness of all things here, the frail 
exposures and brevity of earthly fortune and joy, the 
swift-coming certainty of dissolution. Firdousi once 
struck in his harp the string named Sighing, and these 
are the words its melting tones sounded : — 

" Full many a jocund spring has passed away, 
And many a flower has blossomed to decay : 
And human life, still hastening to a close, 
Finds in the worthless dust its last repose." 

With a deep, resigned pathos sings Dschelaleddin : " If 
this world were our abiding-place, we might complain 
that it makes our bed so hard ; but it is only our night- 



84 INTRODUCTION TO 

quarters on a journey, and who can expect home com- 
forts ? " Life is slippery and insecure as a tremulous 
drop of dew on a lotus-flower. Yet these reflections 
are not usually gloomy and complaining, but thought- 
fully submissive and sweetly melancholy. They seek 
to find comfort for the evanescence of the world in 
.thoughts of its evanescence. And many an Eastern 
poet in his dirges is no dark raven croaking dolefully 
in the graveyard of his joys and hopes, but rather 
a pathetic nightingale in the grove singing of the with- 
ered rose. And. very frequently an enthusiastic ex- 
ultation in the anticipation of the future, mingles even 
with the laments poured over the present. 

" My spirit pines behind its veil of clay 
For light too heavenly perfect here to shine : 
Blest time that tears the envious folds away 
Now dimly darkening o'er that radiant shrine ! 
Poor prisoned exile from a brighter bower ! 
Not here, not thus, thy wonted lay can rise: 
O burst thy bonds and let the descant tower, 
With freshened rapture, in its native skies." 

The Orientals discourse so often and so earnestly on 
-the fugacity of the world, the idleness of riches, the 
fickleness of fortune, and the ephemeral fleetness of 
life, that they have seemed to many a robust-hearted 
worldling lachrymose sermonizers. But herein the re- 
gion of the earth they live in, their past history, their 
form of government, their religion and whole condition, 
excuse them. On that very soil, roam not their minds 
back to a time when a hundred thousand warriors sat 
in the gates of Meroe, — to a period long anterior to the 
day when Moses wooed the daughter of Jethro, — to the 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 85 

hour when, at God's voice and finger, young Adam, the 
fresh rose of humanity, sprang from the magic mould of 
Eden ? What scenes have come and gone there like 
dissolving views ! And now the spider hangs her veil 
undisturbed in the halls of Kai Kosrou, the owl stands 
serftinel on Haroun Al-Raschid's fallen palace-towers, 
the lion forays in the lonesome gardens of Babylon, and 
the dromedary browses in the silent forecourts of Mem- 
phis. Remembering these things, what morals of dis- 
appointment, visions of desolation, emotions of bodeful 
mourning, must flit before them and come over them ! 
Upon their meditating imaginations rises not the awful 
form of Egypt, an aster|sm of conquering dynasties on 
her glimmering brow, the pyramids diminished at her 
side, and a sombre landscape of vanquished nations, for- 
gotten peoples, and unreckoned ages, sloping from her 
feet ? Tread they not on the ruins of the most mag- 
nificent kingdoms, the richest states, the most beautiful 
monuments, of the primeval world ? And of what else 
do these preach, but the futility of plans and things, the 
utter vanity of all the pomp and might of universal 
sway ? From Mount Kaf to the shores of the ocean, 
from the sea to the deserts of Arabia and the Thebaid, 
they gaze on the graves of kings, fragments of temples, 
ruins of royal cities, until again their glances rest on the 
pyramids and the fast-crumbling tombs of imperial gen- 
erations. The intelligent contemplator of these things 
also beholds around him a people sunk far below the 
ability to build such glorious structures, oppressed with 
the yoke of poverty, ignorance, and despotism, dwelling 
among the sepulchres of an ancestral time, and daily 
destroying more of their costly remnants. Methinks 



86 INTRODUCTION TO 

such views might teach even us, the members of a 
younger race and inhabitants of a new land, to compose 
many a wise proverb touching the poorness of human 
glory, and the perishableness of earthly possessions. 
Ah ! well indeed might the Eastern Homer, at the 
close of his great work, reviewing the checkered annals 
and pathetic vicissitudes of so many ages and dynasties, 
exclaim : 

" I feel no resentment, I seek not for strife, 
I wish not for thrones and the glories of life. 
What is glory to man ? An illusion, a cheat. 
What did it for Jemschid, the world at his feet ? " 

In all ages and languages the poet is a preacher. Ge- 
nius normally loves justice, purity, generosity, — every 
virtue and every grace. The poet's nature and tem- 
perament are sensitive to all beauty and goodness. He 
is alive to the impressiveness of the universe, the splen- 
dor and gloom of natural phenomena, the portents of 
fate, the eventful varieties of life and death. Beneath 
all kaleidoscopic visions of vanity, contemplating the 
stable fixtures of reality, how can he help exclaiming to 
his giddier brothers: 

" O fly the glimmer of these haunted plains, 
Whereon the demon of delusion reigns ! " 

The loyal and tender mind which is his endowment re- 
sponds with peculiar force and spontaneity to the at- 
tracting substance and truths of morality. From his 
chief characteristics and vocation he feels deeply, ob- 
serves sympathizingly, and thinks much, loves traditions 
and history, is a child of fancy and hope. But reflec- 
tion, feeling, learning, experience, and faith furnish a 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 87 

man those vivified lessons whose enforcement is the 
aim of preaching. Naturally, therefore, the poet is a 
preacher. History shows this true everywhere, but 
nowhere so emphatically as with the Orientals. The 
literature of the East, whether Indian, Arabic, or Per- 
sian, reveals their poets as the keenest, tenderest, sub- 
limest, most versatile of preachers. We cannot read a 
fairy tale without finding in it, quoted from some favor- 
ite singer, sentiments like this : " There is no hand but / 
God's hand is above it, no oppressor who shall not meet 
an oppressor stronger than himself." Amidst a magical 
story of triumphant cruelty and crowned haughtiness, of 
lust and power, the reader is startled with the lines: 
" Every son of woman, though long he remains alive, 
must one day be carried on the curving bier. How, 
then, shall he on whose cheeks the dust is to be placed, 
find diversion or delight in life ? " In the full sweep of 
his epical narrative Firdousi pauses to moralize, adjur- 
ing his reader, — 

" Look at the heavens, how they roll on ; 
And look at man, how soon he 's gone ! 
A breath of wind, and then no more : — 
A world like this should man deplore ? " 

Every sort of ethical and religious exhortation, from the 
shrewd maxims of prudent self-culture, by the sharp 
satires of lofty contempt, to the rarest reaches of devo- 
tion, we find most admirably expounded and enforced 
by these golden preachers. The following exquisite 
fragment, translated by Sir William Jones from the 
Persian, has long been familiar to thousands : — 

" On parent knees, a naked, new-born child, 
Weeping thou sat'st while all around thee smiled : 



88 INTRODUCTION TO 

So live that, sinking in thy last long sleep, 

Calm thou mayst smile while all around thee weep." 

Where is the expediency of a disciplinary education 
better urged than in this image ? 

" O square thyself for use : a stone that may 
Fit in the wall, is not left in the way." 

It would be hard to satirize the heartless and savage 
greed of utter selfishness more finely than it is done in 
the lines, — 

" There is no ointment for the wolfs sore eyes 
Like clouds of dust which from the sheep arise." 

How strikingly the exposure of man, his helpless de- 
pendence, the need of being always ready, are set forth 
in these brief words from Saadi ! 

" One wept all night beside a sick man's bed : 
At dawn the sick was well, the mourner dead." 

A whole world of profound meaning and electrifying 
eloquence are in the following verses, with which a 
Persian writer on practical virtue illumines one of his 
dry pages : — 

" Though human life be reason's dream, 
Rouse thine ere morning wake it, 
And offer up thy heart to Him 
Who else, unasked, will take it." 

With what a beautiful simplicity of wisdom the providen- 
tial ordering of things as they are is justified in the little 
dialogue succeeding ! Khosru says to his beloved Shi- 
reen : " The Sultanship would be glorious did it remain 
with one for ever." She replies : " Perceivest thou not 
that, did it remain for ever with one, thou wouldst never 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 89 

have been Sultan at all?" The spirit of lowly love 
and forgiving sacrifice will scarcely ever be better 
uttered than it is in the well-known couplet, — 

" The sandal-tree, most sacred tree of all, 
Perfumes the very axe which bids it fall." 

But as the best single illustration known to me of the 
Oriental poet in the capacity of preacher, I will cite the 
celebrated story of the poet at the royal feast. I give 
it as versified, from Sylvestre de Sacy's Chrestomathie 
Arabe, by Trench, to whom I am also indebted for 
three or four couplets previously quoted. 

THE FESTIVAL. 

"Five hundred princely guests before Haroun Al-Raschid 
sate, 
Five hundred princely guests or more admired his royal 
state; 

" For never had that glory been so royally displayed, 
Nor ever such a gorgeous scene had eye of man surveyed. 

" He, most times meek of heart, yet now of spirit too elate, 
Exclaimed : ' Before me Caesars bow, on me two empires 
wait 

" ' Yet all our glories something lack, we do our triumphs 
wrong, 
Until to us reflected back as mirrored clear in song. 

" ' Therefore eall him to whom this power is given, this skill 
sublime. 
Now win from us some gorgeous dower with song that fits 
the time.' 



90 INTRODUCTION TO 

" 'My king, as I behold thee now, may I-behold thee still, 
While prostrate worlds before thee bow, and wait upon thy 
will! 

" ' May evermore this clear, pure heaven, whence every 
speck and stain 
Of trouble far away is driven, above thy head remain ! ' 

"The Caliph cried: 'Thou wishest well; there waits thee 
golden store 
For this ; — but oh ! resume the spell ; I fain would listen 
more.' 

| " ' Drink thou life's sweetest goblet up, and may its^wine, 
For other's lips a mingled cup, be all unmixed for thine. 

" ' Live long ; — the shadow of no grief come ever near to 
thee: 
As thou in height of place art chief, so chief in gladness be.' 

" Haroun Al-Baschid cried again : ' I thank thee ; — but pro- 
ceed, 
And now take up a higher strain, and win a higher meed.' 

" Around that high, magnific hall one glance the poet threw, 
On courtiers, king, and festival, and did the strain renew. 

" 'And yet, and yet shalt thou at last lie stretched on bed 
of death : 
Then, when thou drawest thick and fast with sobs thy pain- 
ful breath, — 

" ' When Azrael glides through guarded gate, through hosts 
that camp around 
Their lord in vain, and will not wait, — when thou art sadly 
bound 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 91 

" ' Unto thine house of dust alone, O king, when thou must 
die, 
This pomp a shadow thou must own, this glory all a lie.' 

" Then darkness on all faces hung, and through the banquet 
went 
Low sounds the murmuring guests among of angry dis- 
content. 

" And him anon they fiercely urge : ' What guerdon shall 
be thine ? 
Why didst thou bring this awful dirge 'mid feasts, and 
flowers, and wine ? 

" • Our lord demanded in his mirth a strain to heighten glee ; 
But, lo ! at thine his tears come forth in current swift and 
free.' 

" ' Peace ! — not to him rebukes belong, but rather highest 
grace; 
He gave me what I asked, a song to fit the time and place.' 

" All voices at that voice were stilled ; again the Caliph 
cried : 
' He saw our mouths with laughter filled, he saw us drunk 
with pride, 

" ' And bade us know that every road, by monarch trod or 
slave, 
Thick set with thorns, with roses strewed, doth issue in the 
grave.' " 

In the absence of everything of the kind from our 
language, the present crude and hasty sketch of hints 
at the contents and character of Oriental poetry, may 
be acceptable and useful. It may serve to give many 



92 INTRODUCTION TO ORIENTAL POETRY. 

persons whose catholic thoughtfulness and aesthetic 
sensitiveness, whose temperament and culture, fit them 
to enjoy it, at least some slight acquaintance with a 
department of literature unique, alike in essence and 
treatment, and certainly, in many of the choicest quali- 
ties of poetry, wholly unrivalled. During the past year 
the United States government has imported from Pales- 
tine several specimens of a tree called the Carob, or 
St. John's Bread, and employed skilful arboriculturists 
to try and see if it cannot be made to grow and yield 
fruit, even in a clime and air so remote from its own. 
It blossoms twice a year, overshadows a space more 
than thirty yards in diameter, and bears a ton of pods 
full of sugar and wild-honey. Who knows but the 
effort may be successful, and lead to the transplantation 
and acclimation in America of hundreds of the richest 
indigenous growths of Asia ? And so might the present 
humble work — seeking to import into the West, and 
exhibit there, some specimens of the Thought, Senti- 
ment, and Fancy of the East — be but a forerunner of 
many abler works in the same direction, which shall be 
worthier representations, in our English speech, of that 
wonderful Oriental poetry whose most characteristic 
treasures are as sparkling with the splendor of imagina- 
tive genius, and as odorous with the fragrance of ex- 
quisite sensibility, as though they had been "strained 
through starry strata and the musky loam of Para- 
dise"! 



METRICAL SPECIMENS 

OF THE 

THOUGHT, SENTIMENT, AND FANCY 
OF THE ORIENT. 



These gems, so long from tjs concealed, 
Their burning rays at length revealed. 



THE POETRY OF THE ORIENT. 



THE INFINITE COUNTENANCE. 

Where'er I look, one Face alone I see, 
With every attribute of beauty in it blent ; 
Still, still the Godhead's face entrances me, 
Yielding transcendency of all that can be spent. 

SELF-ISOLATION. 

It needs not guards in front and rear to keep the 

crowd away ; 
Aversion to the vulgar throng will hold them all at 

bay. 

A LOVELY CHILD. 

Feast of my eyes, sweet little maid ! 

All loveliness on thee is laid ; 

And for thy growing, growth was made. 



96 SPECIMENS OF 

WE SHALL MEET AGAIN. 

The day-of-separation sorely rent my heart, 
But God shall rend the day-of-separation's heart. 

THE BETRAYING INFLUENCE. 

As the rose doth its fragrance impart 
To the basket in which it is laid, 
Whether wrought of pure gold or of braid ; 
So, receiving wise men in thy heart, 
Thou shalt find, when their persons depart, 
That their wisdom behind them hath staid. 

THE GIGANTIC TRAP AND SPORTSMAN. 

All heaven and earth compose a cage, 
And vice and virtue in each age 
Spread out a net. Life is the prey, 
And Time the fowler. What a play ! 

MYTHIC ETYMOLOGY. 

The name of Maya is to Siva's wife applied, 
Denoting that Illusion is Destruction's bride. 

THE MYSTIC CONFOUNDED. 

The Brahman, Hargovind, maintained with pride, 
That no distinction was to be descried 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 97 

Between a stone, a child, the sky, a pall ; 

For all things formed but One, and each was All. 

Shrewd Deva pointed to an ass, and asked, 

" Discern you what this object is ? " He masked 

His aim, but none the inference could miss : 

" Since you are one with all, you must be this ! " 

life's allurement. 

Walking, walking still, my feet are weary ; 
All too far off stands and shines the city ; 
Blooms a warm tent near the roadside dreary ; 
Ah, say, should you blame, or should you pity ? 

THE SILLY WORSHIPPER. 

The votary who turns from Vishnu, and another god 

adores, 
Is like the thirsty idiot «who a well beside the Ganges 

bores. 

A GOOD MAN IN A NAUGHTY WORLD. 

Like sea-bird's lucid wing beneath the black and storm- 
fraught skies, 

Like pearl in ugly shell where ocean's worthless rub- 
bish lies, 

Like lotus o'er the mud in virgin purity unfurled, 

A virtuous man is seen amidst this all-polluted world. 



98 SPECIMENS OF 



WE GO TOO FAR. 



Tell me, why should a man who good honey can find 
At his feet, in the akka flower scenting the wind, 
To the hills for it go, leaving akkas behind ? 

FATE AND THE ARAB LOVER. 

Milawne Tanbe loved Ab Talib's wife, 
The fair and gentle Leila el Akteel „ 

And vain of harp and words is every strife 

To tell what love makes hearts like Tanbe's feel. 

He pines away, his love so deadly strong, 

With maddening thoughts of Leila el Akteel ; 

At length his dying soul exhales in song, 

And thus the notes in faltering accents steal : — 

"Let Leila el Akteel, when lam dead, 

But come where this poor body lies interred, 

And speak to me, and I shall lift my head 
To answer, or my tomb itself be heard" 

Three moons have sailed above the poet's tomb, 
Built in the mountain-side, his village nigh. 

For camels twain the path yields narrow room, 
But there are two abreast now travelling by. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 99 

The burial-place is still and lonesome all ; 

Weird lights and shades the fate of man rehearse. 
" Go yonder, Leila, on that madman call ! 

See how he keeps the promise of his verse." 

" A thing so cruel, Talib, do not bid ; 

I pray thee, let us turn away and go." 
Broke out the anger in his bosom hid, — 

" Must I enforce my order with a blow ? " 

Dismounts she then, unveils her lovely face, 
And gropes her way beneath the summit sheer ; 

And reaching soon her lover's sleeping-place, 
She softly calls, " Poor Tanbe, art thou here ? " 

A startled eagle in the cliff o'erhead 

A stone sets loose, which falls with thundering sound, 
Recoils from off the tomb and strikes her dead, 

While frightful throngs of echoes wail around. 

" It was the will of Allah, and her fate ! " 

Fierce Talib said, dismounting from his beast ; 

" To alter or complain it is too late, 

But I will make one poor amends at least." 

His sword breaks in the tomb ; his wife he bears, 
While mournful bodings through his bosom steal, 

Apart the spicy shroud of Tanbe tears, 
And places there sweet Leila el Akteel. 



100 SPECIMENS OF 



ACHMED AND HIS MARE. 

An old Arabian tale the truth conveys, 
That honor's passion avarice outweighs. 



Brave Achmed owned a mare of wondrous speed ; 
He prized her much above his wife or creed. 

And lest some one should steal that precious mare, 
He guarded her with unremitting care. 

He tied her every night before his tent ; 

The fastening-cord then round his pillow went. 

When all in slumber lay, the robber crept, 
Unloosed the cord, and on the courser leapt. 

" Wake up ! " he cries, — " 't is I, the thief, who call ; 
See now if she in flight is chief of all ! " 

Mount Achmed and his tribe in wrath and shame, 
And chase him as a tempest chases flame. 

Hot Achmed nearly to the robber came, 

When thus he thought : " My mare will lose her fame. 

" If I o'ertake her, she is then outrun ; 
But if I reach her not, I am undone. 

" 6, better she were stolen before my face 

Than have her vanquished in this desperate race ! " 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 101 

One secret sign his mare was taught to heed, 
Whenever she must try her utmost speed. 

He to the robber screamed, " Quick, pinch her ear ! " 
The sign she felt with answering love and fear. 

As like a level thunderbolt she flew, 

All chase was vain, the vexed pursuers knew. 

Before this self-betrayal blank surprise 

Fills Achmed's comrades, and their wondering cries 

Demand, " How shall thy foolish act be named ? " — 
" My mare is lost, her glory is not shamed," 

He says : " I knew that, if her ear he nipped, 
The darling prize could never be outstripped." 



A LEADER TO REPOSE. 

In the rest of Nirwana all sorrows surcease ; 
Only Buddha can guide to that City of Peace, 
Whose inhabitants have the eternal release. 



THE SEGMENT MOON. 

The new moon now appears, in yon heaven-tent's azure- 

hued swell, 
As a cutting which lucidly clean from God's finger-nail 

fell ! 



102 SPECIMENS OF 

THE BURNISHED CUP. 

The round sun is a glittering goblet of gold, 

Borne about all the world by a blue-handed God ; 

And the wine it profusely outpours, as of old, 
Is the light that bedrenches the sky and the sod. 

NARROW IS THE WAY. 

One day took Buddha up a speck of mould, 
And said to those who stood around : " Behold, 
As is this speck compared with all the earth, 
So are the men whose next succeeding birth 
Will be within a more exalted state, 
Compared with those who find a lower fate." 

THE LOVE OF MEN. 

Who feels not for the sorrows of his fellow-men, 
Should have no house, but dwell in some deserted den. 

THE LAST CARRIER. 

The black camel named Death kneeleth once at each 

door, 
And a mortal must mount to return nevermore. 

THE SUFl's SIGH. 

A bird of holiness am I, 

Who from this world's vain net would fly. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 1 03 



PERSONIEICATION OF DAWN : RIG VEDA. 

Similitude of all the mornings past, 
And all the mornings in the future vast, 
Young Dawn to-day her faultless bosom bares ; 
Her beauty every waking creature shares ; 
She opes a road before the Sun on high, 
And, great or small, she passes no one by. 



THE DILIGENT REDEEMER. 

Each morn before the dawn had lifted its pale latch, 
Abroad throughout the helpless world did Buddha 
look, 

To see what souls the net of truth that day should catch, 
And his enlightening measures in accordance took, 

With sweet persuading voice to preach the truths sublime 

Whereby alone they could unto Nirwana climb. 



ORIGIN OF SIVA S THIRD EYE. 

In sport the wife of Siva placed her hands 
Upon her husband's eyes. Dark grew all lands, 
And Terror put the Universe to rout. 
A third eye in his forehead started out ; 
And from the sweat of his exertion fell 
The mighty Ganges, as the sages tell. 



104 SPECIMENS OP 

wasana's PROVERB. 

Good deeds in this world done 
Are paid beyond the sun ; 
As water on the root 
Is seen above in fruit. 

BUDDHA TO HIS DISCIPLE. 

O, wise Anunda ! has it never unto you been shown 
That all the eighty thousand precepts which rahats have 

known, 
Are but so many Buddhas with whose light the earth 

is fraught, 
And by whose guidance men may be to blest Nirwana 

brought ? 

IMPERTURBABLE DEITY. 

Is God to be disturbed by throes of men, fool ? 

Sometimes the image of the sun in water seen, 
Is tremulous with the undulations of the pool ; 

But not the orb itself is shaken thus, I ween. 

IDENTIFICATION OF THE SOUL. 

The soul of man, placed here amidst deluding things, 
Bewildered, knows not what its character may be, 

Until the truth some holy teacher to it brings, 
And then it knows itself the mighty God to be. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 105 



A HINDOSTANEE COUPLET. 

Who shall anoint the heads of rats with jasmine oil 
Will do a foolish thing, and worse than waste his toil. 

AN EPITHET BY INSIGHT. 

When on a stupid man the Arabs glance, 

They shrewdly name him, " Cold-of-countenance " ! 

WHAT IS NIRWANA? 

The Buddha, Sakya Muni, said : " To those who know 
Of causes and effects the actual connection, 
There is no further transmigrating resurrection ; 

From Being and from Nothing they in freedom go. 

THE SIGHT OF FRIENDSHIP. 

A friend both wise and true amid all shocks 
Resplendent shines, like fire upon a rock's 
High top, which dissipates the darkness round, 
And fills the travellers by with joy profound. 

THE FATAL KEY : MAHOMET. 

The tongue is the key of the mind ; 
And whenever it opens the secret-hung door, V 

What lies in the storehouse behind, 
Whether gems or mere rubbish, is hidden no more. 



106 SPECIMENS OF 



NO SAFETY AGAINST STRENGTH. 

Of old the Asuras, fighting Indra through the world, 
Obtained this boon from Brahma, that when Indra hurled 
His thunderbolts against them, they should not be 

harmed. 
Then, fancying themselves invulnerably armed, 
They scoffed the thunder-handed monarch to his face ; 
His flaming wrath and ready thought kept even pace ; 
Seeing the sun-car roll along the skyey steep, 
Its wheel he snatched, and flung, and slew them in a 

heap ! 

PRAYER FROM THE RIG VEDA. 

Aditya, kindly hearken to our cry ! 

Remove from us the manacles of sin ; 

Come as a ship, receive our spirits in, 
And o'er a sea of praises sail on high. 



PERSONIFICATION FROM RIG VEDA. 

The sun has yoked his seven self-harnessed steeds 
In car of congregated lightnings formed ; 

His way above the purpling heights he leads, 

And drives the glooms that in his absence swarmed. 

Soon as his nightly couch, refreshed, he leaves, 

The constellations all depart like thieves. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 107 

METAPHYSICS FROM THE RIG VEDA. 

Who the Being primeval has ever beheld, either dead 
or at birth ? 

And what substance does that which has nothing sub- 
stantial sustain or enclose ? 

We perceive that the breath and the blood are pro- 
duced from the visible earth ; 

But the Source of the soul, who of mortals will dare to 
maintain that he knows ? 

WELCOME BE DEATH. 

If thou, O Death ! a being art, draw near, 

And let me clasp thee ; for I hold thee dear. 

I shall extort eternal life from thee ; 

Thou canst but snatch this worn-out dress from me. 

FINAL CERTITUDE. 

As the soul is true certainty's marrow, 

And the body its fair envelope, 
In each spirit, no matter how narrow, 
Ever trace the dear form of the Friend, 

And await till fruition of hope 
All illusions shall bring to an end. 

THE SAINT'S RAPTURE. 

Whenever I can look upon my Lord's unveiled face, 
The world is but a dew-drop in the lily-cup of space. 



108 specimens of 

hariri's riddles, 
i. 
It is a more prodigious tree. 
A weaker man it seems to be. 
It is its fate to join with all 
The solid things upon this ball. 
But with the falling of its foe, — 
How strange it is ! — itself doth go. 

•soip aiopm/g oqj^ 
*sanj uns air) uou;m 



What dried-up stick, before or since the flood, 
Was turned into a thing of flesh and blood ? 

*95[BUS SuiJAlBJO pUB 9AIJ y 

9yem sasoj\[ pip jg^s sijj 



What tongue ne'er speaks a word, nor lives, 
And yet- most certain judgment gives ? 
It doth no business arbitrate, 
Except with emphasis and weight ; 
Silver and gold to it are like, 
But More and Less with difference strike. 
When hostile parties stand before 
Its bar, their quarrels all are o'er ; 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 109 

And equally content they feel, 
Howe'er its sentence makes them reel ! 

•S8p3DS jo JiBd pooS v jo 9n£ao:i 9q:i ST JQ, 

'STltfJ J9SS9IlS pAV9JqS OU J9AiSlI13 9q^ JQ 



Derived from a stock as pure as the stars, 
Malignant he grew in the house of jars. 
So long as good he remains, touch him not ; 
He threats, O Moslem ! to ruin thy lot. 
But when to corruption passes he o'er, 
He then is clean, and can injure no more. 
A sinner he died, a saint rose again. 
Who will make to me this miracle plain ? 

j outj jbSouia 'JUOOOUUT avojj 
i 8U TA1 S I paspjAi Aioij 'ux9tsoj\[ q 



I saw a maiden slim 

Who short and shorter grew, 
Though still as fair and trim, 

As unto death she drew 
With look so bright and merry ; 

And when her life outblew, 
There nothing was to bury ! 

•djpuvQ is si3Ai naprem 9qx 
*9{puBq JOtftfui oq? j sy 



110 SPECIMENS OF 

THE MYSTIC SCHOOL. 

Not a sign of a man or a world 

On the tablet of being appeared. 
Of a sudden through chaos was hurled 

The creative command from above. — 
The dominions of darkness were cleared, 

The broad earth rose in beauty to view, 
And the soul, as a pupil all new, 

Was breathed forth in the College of Love. 

THE INDEFILABLE ONE. 

Although the sun doth serve as eye to all 

TJie creatures living on full many globes, 
Yet he is not polluted in his hall 

By any filthiness his radiance probes. 
So God the- universal empire fills, 

And bare beneath his omnipresent eyes 
Is spread a multitude of loathsome ills, 

Yet can they not his pureness compromise. 

THE IMMINENCT OF SIN. 

As he who finds his head' on fire 
Extinguishes the flame with speed ; 
So wise men will of death take heed, 
And swiftly quench all wrong desire. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. HI 

THE WORST PASSION. 

All other passions you may yoke in steel, 
But not the dropping eye of envy heal. 

TWO TALISMANS. 

Two words unveil the peace of heaven and earth, I know : 
Affection to the friend, politeness to the foe. 

SELF-SUFFICING WORTH. 

Will sparkling diamonds, in the sunshine raised, 
Grow dark and worthless if they be not praised ? 

STIMULUS OF HEROIC EXAMPLES. 

For right and freedom when man strives or bleeds, 
The seed is sown for truest lords and earls : 
Then love and glory be to those whose deeds 
Have set the bracelet of the world with pearls ! 

UNIMPROVED PRIVILEGES. 

Through Paradise once went a troop of straying asses, 
Nor stopped till Hell they reached, where no cool spring 

nor grass is. 
Like them he acts who, born with every want prepared 

for, 
Perverts his gifts, and wastes his days, and dies uncared 

for. 



112 SPECIMENS OF 

THE BRIGHT-HOOFED CHARGER. 

The new moon is a horseshoe of gold wrought by God, 
And therewith shall the steed of Abdallah be shod. 

THE DOUBLE-FLAVORED APPLE. 

In Shiraz grows a tree, within the Sultan's bower, 
Which bears an apple one half sweet, and one half sour. 
Ah ! such an apple is the world. How sweet it tastes 
In joy ! how sour when turning round to grief it hastes ! 

NATURE AND THE MYSTIC. 

Transfusing Allah's beauties how shall I compare ? 
The Day is his sweet face, the Night his streaming 
hair. 

THE SAFE SECRET. 

A proverb says that what to more than two is known 
Has ceased to be a mystery, and public grown. 
The proverb's sense is this : Those two are but thy lips. 
A secret is quite free when once through them it slips. 

imagination's power. 

Where but a single ray of Mahmoud's genius strikes 

and stops, 
The common granite crumbles into rubies, like pure 

drops. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 113 

AN ANTERIOR STATE: FROM KALIDASA. 

The king, Dushyanta, torn from fair Sakiintala by fate, 
In tender mood, all silent musing, in his garden sate. 
Upon his meditations unexplained emotions stole, 
And with the most unutterable longings filled his soul. 
Then, looking in the soft and vasty blue above him 

domed, 
And seeking for the source of the strange sadness which 

he feels, 
He sighs, " Perchance it is the vague remembrance o'er 

me steals 
Of dearest friends with whom in other lives and spheres 

I roamed." 



ENVIOUS VANITY. 

The foolish camel begged of Allah for a pair of horns : 
Instead of granting them, Allah deprived him of his 

ears! 
Lose not the grace appropriate which already you adorns 
By seeking what on others as an ornament appears. 



THE FIRE-WORSHIPPERS. 

Zuleika's eyes are suns : whoever look on these, 
Whate'er their faith before, at once become Parsees. 



114 SPECIMENS OF 

THE ELEPHANT AND THE RHINOCEROS. R. 

To fight the elephant rhinoceros whets his horn ; 
For nearest blood relations oft as foes are born. 

His horn rhinoceros in the elephant's paunch doth 

thrust, 
And on it bears him off, — if thou the tale canst trust. 

But in his eyes run blood and fat through the mangled 

rind, 
Till with his load upon the earth he tumbles blind. 

Soon then the vulture on their helpless hulks has 

sprung, 
To tear out fragments for itself and for its young. 



THE LUMINOUS TRUTH. 

u Who will give me his heart," said God, " my love he 

shall find." 
With that speech a resplendent sun fell into my mind. 

GET THEE BEHIND ME, SATAN ! 

Turn thou thine eyes from each seducing sight, 
For looking whets the ready edge of appetite. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 115 

INSCRIPTION OVER A PERSIAN SPRING. 

Beneath these palm-trees flows this fountain, 
In endless gush, the joy-tears of yon mountain. 

Soft-gurgling clear, 

It bubbles here, 
Amidst the sweet-exhaling flowers 
O'er which the rock-cliff sternly lowers. 
pilgrim ! as your parched lips lave it, 
Pour out your thanks to Him who gave it. 

idealism: from the dabistan. 

Fartosh believed that nothing here below was real ; 
The world and its inhabitants were but ideal. 
To teach his servant this philosophy he thought ; 
But when, one day, his horse he ordered to be brought 
That he might ride, the servant brought a wretched ass ! 
Fartosh with heat demanded how this came to pass. 
The slave had stolen the horse, but, that shrewd theft to 

hide, 
He with his master's metaphysics thus replied : 
" Thou hast been thinking of a mental image mere ; 
There was no actual horse in being, it is clear." 
Fartosh exclaimed : " I see how this has come to pass ; 
You speak the truth " ; — then plucked the saddle from 

the ass, 



116 SPECIMENS OF 

And put it on the servant's back, and, bridling him, 
Mounted and lashed the fellow with unsparing vim ; 
And when the crude philosopher for mercy cried, 
And asked the reason of these blows, Fartosh replied : 
" There are no blows, and as a whip there is no such 

thing, 
'T is only an illusion you are suffering ! " 
On this the smarting slave repented of his fault, 
And brought the missing horse with no demurring halt. 

THE VICTOR CHEEK. 

So beautiful thy cheek, that from it goes 
A wound into the mind of the red rose. 
Compared with the blush from thy blood that flows, 
All yellow with envy is the red rose. 



SPEAKING THE TRUTH. 

Otaiye from his earliest youth 
Was consecrated unto truth ; 
And if the universe must die 
Unless Otaiye told a lie, 
He would defy the last fate's crash, 
And let all sink in one pale ash, 
Or ere by any means was wrung 
A drop of falsehood from his tongue. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 117 

RETALIATION. 

A sheep the slaughtering butcher with his knife once 

met, 
And said : " Hold out your neck and die ! " The sheep 

rejoins : 
" I suffer now for all the twigs and grass I 've ate : 
What shall he suffer, then, who eats my fatted loins ? " 



THE DEVOTED PUPIL. 

When Har-govind's dead form was placed upon the 

pyre, 
A Kajaput who loved him leaped amidst the fire, 
And, walking several paces through the flames to reach 
The feet of him who had been wont his soul to teach, 
Laid down his loving face against his master's soles, 
Till naught was left of him but ashes on the coals. 

• 
zoroaster's laugh. 

Zoroaster, soon as born, gave forth a laugh : 
Other children weep when first the air they quaff. 
"•Surely some great prophet in this child we clasp," 
Cried his parents, both Dogduyah and Purshasp. 



118 SPECIMENS OP 

REGRET OVER A SQUANDERED YOUTH. 

Ah, five-and-twenty years ago had I but planted seeds 

of trees, 
How now I should enjoy their shade, and see their fruit 

swing in the breeze ! 



THE CASTES OP INDIA. R. 

From Brahma's body came — the ancient legend 

lasts — 
Great Jambudwipa's race, divided in four castes. 
The teachers left the head ; from the arm the warriors 

sprang ; 
The breast the traders bore ; the foot the servants' 

gang- 

How shattered is the body's glory and its rest ! 
The foot upon the earth stands level with the breast ; 
The arm, deprived of force, has sunk like lifeless lead ; 
And helpless droops, above, the unprotected head. 



THE BRAHMIN AND THE SUDRA. R. 

A Brahmin proud, poverty's yoke compelled to brook, 
Entered tke service of a Sudra as a cook. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 119 

He might his master's dishes carry up, the priest, 
But could not clear away the fragments of the feast. 

4 
'T would be unclean to touch what impure hands have 

left: 

What booty, then, from all his cooking has he reft ? 

The Brahmin, that he may not starve, is wont, indeed, 
To eat his fill before his master he will feed. 

The leavings of the cook the master's mouth supply ; 
The master's leavings are for crows and dogs thrown by. 

It flatters him to have a cook whose scorn he knows 
Will not yield precedence to him o'er dogs and crows ! 



DEPARTURE OF THE MYTHIC AGE. 

Hero-days are gone by, though our bosoms still sighing 

for them bleed ! 
Wholly vain is all search for the magical goblet of 

Jemschid. 

THE POWER OF WORDS. R. 

The power of words gives death and life, makes war 

and truce : — 
In illustration this example I adduce. 



120 SPECIMENS OF 

Learn thou, as did Abou Adheen, fit words to use ; — 

But as with poison he, with balsam thine infuse. 



Among the Arabs once a deadly hatred ran 
Between the royal lines of Hira and Gassan. 

In Hira, Mundar's son, Aswad, sat on his throne. 
Gassan's array had from him in the battle flown. 

But all of royal blood had been pursued and caught, 
And for release they with a mighty ransom sought. 

Their wish Aswad would grant ; but, with a frowning 

mien, 
His cousin rose and spake, — thus spake Abou Adheen : 

" Not every day does man achieve his hard pursuit, 
Not every day does fortune offer ripened fruit. 

He is the wisest man, to act or understand, 
Who seizes opportunity when near his hand ; 

And he the justest man who doth his foemen treat 
"With that same fate which he himself from them would 
meet. 

It is not wrong the dagger's edge to make them taste, 
Which they would make thee feel with most unsparing 
haste. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 121 

Forgiveness is an ornament which perils those 
Who dare to wear it in the face of mighty foes. 

Wouldst break the twig and leave the root within the 

sward? 
Who follow such a course in woe will reap reward. 

Do not cut off the viper's tail as past he glides, 
But wisely crush his hateful head before he hides. 

All men will say, shouldst thou dismiss these captives 

here, 
Thou didst it not from generosity, but fear. 

They offer ransom large, and magnify each gift 

Of camels, sheep ; precious, no doubt, to men of thrift ! 

What! shall they milk our blood, and we take milk 

from them ? 
We shall be cowards called in all the tents of Shem ! 

From us no ransom would they take in herds or gold ; 
And shall their forfeit lives by us for pay be sold ? " 

" Thou art right," exclaimed Aswad, and doomed each 

one to fall. 
The words of fierce Abou Adheen thus slew them all. 



122 SPECIMENS OF 



THE HEART S RITUAL. 



A "wooden rosary he never needs, 

Who tells in love and thought the spirit's beads. 



THE CONDITIONAL VISION. 

Where'er the face of earnest faith thou bringest, pure 

and sweet, 
Thou there the smiling face of thine approving God 

shalt meet. 

THE .CONFIDANT'S CONFIDANT. 

Do thou thy precious secrets to no other lend : 

Thy friend another has : beware of thy friend's friend ! 

THE TWO TRAVELLERS : FROM SAADI. 

Says God : " Who comes towards me an inch through 

doubtings dim. 
In blazing light I do approach a yard towards him." 

THE HAPPY RESTORATION. 

Life 's a loan from Him who gave us being, 
And its value lies in homewards fleeing. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 123 

THOUGHT FROM CHARACTER. 

The rascal, thinking from his point of view, 
Concludes that all the world are rascals too. 

DELAYED RETRIBUTION. 

God's mills grind slow, 
But they grind woe. 

THE GOOD MAN'S REWARD. 

Who has good deeds brought well to end, 
For him the gloomy forests shine ; 
The whole world is to him a friend, 
And all the earth a diamond mine. 

THE PLEDGE AND THE THING. 
FROM THE AKHLAK-IJALALY. 

This life is a dim pledge of friendship from our God : 
Give me the Friend, and the pledge may sink in the sod. 

INDEPENDENCE. 

Cling not to aught that may be snatched from o'er the 

rim ; 
One fairy tale was all that Jemschid took with him. 



124 SPECIMENS OF 

THE TRANSCENDENTALISM 

If, whene'er our souls with Truth's own thoughts are 

swelling, 
We for God with pious fear and faith do rightly search, 
We shall learn that all the world is Love's own dwelling, 
And but little care for Moslem mosque or Christian 

church. 



THE INNERMOST SHRINE. 

There is a flesh-lump in man's mortal part, 
And in this lump of flesh doth beat the heart, 
And in this heart the deathless spirit bides, 
And in this spirit conscious mystery hides, 
And in this mystery deep a light doth glow, 
And in this light learn thou thy God to know. 



THE SOUL AND GOD. 

God and the soul are two birds free, 
And dwell together in one tree : 
This eateth various-flavored fruits 
Of sense's thoughts and world's pursuits ; 
That tasteth not, nor great nor small, 
But silently beholdeth all. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 125 

nature's TRADITIONAL LAMENT. 

The sweet current of primeval love still flows 
Throughout the veins of all creation ; else why mourn 
The broken-hearted bulbuls for the perished rose, 
Or sigh the gales along the beds dried streams have 
worn ? 



reflections of divinity. 

Mirrors God maketh all atoms in space, 
And fronteth each one with his perfect face. 



THERE IS NO DANGER. 

Need'st thou to move 
Thy skirts above 

Thy knees, 
In passing through 
That flood of glue, 

This world? 
Why I did even 
Pass through the seven 

Great seas, 
And not a drop 
My foot's bare top 

Impearled. 



126 SPECIMENS OF 



LOST AND FOUND. 



Thou that wouldst find the Lost One, lose thyself! 
Nothing but self thyself from Him divides. 
Ask ye how I o'erpassed the dreary gulf? 
One step beyond myself, and naught besides. 

THE BEGGAR'S COURAGE : DSCHELLALEDDlN RUMY. 

To heaven approached a Siifi saint, 
From groping in the darkness late, 

And, tapping timidly and faint, 
Besought admission at God's gate. 

Said God, " Who seeks to enter here ? " 
" 'T is I, dear Friend," the saint replied, 

And trembled much with hope and fear. 
" If it be thou, without abide." 

Sadly to earth the poor saint turned, 
To bear the scourgings of life's rods ; 

But aye his heart within him yearned 
To mix and lose its love in God's. 

He roamed alone through weary years, 
By cruel men still scorned and mocked, 

Until, from faith's pure fires and tears, 
Again he rose, and modest knocked. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 127 

Asked God, " Who now is at the door ? " 

" It is thyself, beloved Lord ! " 
Answered the saint, in doubt no more, 

But clasped and rapt in his reward. 

THE VANITY OP RANK. 

What matter will it be, O mortal man, when thou art 

dying, 
Whether upon a throne or on the bare earth thou art 
lying? 

THE ECSTATIC HOUR OP DEATH. 

Ah, when, at last, in solitude I meet 
The Friend Divine, whose love is safe for me, 
O, I shall tread the worlds beneath my feet, 
And upwards soar in endless ecstasy. 

ALL IS SAFE. 

I Whatever road I take, it joins the street 
Which leadeth all who walk it Thee to meet. 

THE PILGRIM TO DEITY. 

Heedless, allured, one moment I forgot my goal : 

A thousand years it stretched the journey of my soul. 



128 SPECIMENS OF 

THE LUXURIOUS PROTECTION. 

For faith in God's protecting love is to believing souls 
Like a cool shade to one who in a blistering desert 
strolls. 



A RANK IN JOYS. 

My heart ! abstain thou from the senses' dear wine-bowl ; 
Diviner joys thy God intends shall through thee roll. 



THE VOLUPTUARY AND THE HERO. 

Whoever clasps the smiling and soft-shining taper, 
Will find it end in darkness and in noisome vapor. 
With pleasure so ; but who strikes self-denial's flint, 
May light his spirit's fires at the clean sparkle's glint. 

A HIDDEN PERIL. 

The thicket of lust never deem it safe to pass by ; 
The tiger of pain in it crouched doth probably He. 

A PLEASURE ABOVE PLEASURE. 

Austerity's pleasure didst thou but know, 

For pleasure's pleasure thou no more wouldst glow. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 129 



THE BEATIFIC VISION. 



The dazzling beauty of the Loved One shines unseen, 
And self 's the curtain o'er the road ; away, O screen ! 

PRETENCE AND PERFORMANCE. 

The whole deposit of the sea's eternal roar 

Is but a murmured fringe of froth that lines the shore. 

THE FIRST TIME OR NEVER. 

The Once makes 

The thrift 
Of the thriver ; 
The Twice breaks 

The drift 
Of the driver. 
The Once flings 

The stone 
From the stumbler ; 
The Twice brings 

The groan 
From the grumbler. 
The Once turns 

The thought 
Of the thinker ; 



130 SPECIMENS OP 

The Twice burns, 

The drought 
Of the drinker. 
The Once lights 

The search 
Of the seeker; 
The Twice slights 

The lurch 
Of the leaker. 
The Once crowns 

The choice 
Of the chooser; 
The Twice frowns, 

The loss 
Of the loser. 

THE WORTHLESS ENRICHED. 

The love of life would ne'er my thoughts oppress, 
Did not the life of love my heart possess. 

THE SAFE COFFER. 

Be diadem or helmet on thy head, 
It must be arrow-pierced, and thou lie dead. 
Then every man whose -mind is wisdom stocked 
Will strive to have his wealth in heaven locked. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 131 

THE PREFIGURING BLAST. 

The fear of hell my soul could never know, 
Till sin had made its fires within me glow. 

SYMPATHY'S TENDERNESS. 

If in my body chance to break a thorn, 
I care not for the trifling pain ; 
But for the hapless twig I mourn, 
Which never can be whole again. 

THE SOUL'S TRIUMPH OVER NATURE. 

Pure spirit is the wine of God's will ; 
All matter is the scum of his cup : 
So the former life's goblet shall fill, 
When the latter is all drunken up. 

WORTH OF WISDOM. 

Vishnu asked Bal to take his choice, 
With five wise men to visit hell, 
Or with five ignorant visit heaven. 
Then quick did Bal in heart rejoice, 
And chose in hell with the wise to dwell ; 
For heaven is hell, with folly's bell ; 
And hell is heaven, with wisdom's leaven. 



132 SPECIMENS OF 



THE SECRET OF PIETY. 



A pining sceptic towards a raptured saint inclined, 
And asked him how the Boundless Lover, God, to find. 
A smile divine across the saint's pale features stole, 
As thus in wise and pitying love he poured his soul : 
" Ah, hapless wanderer ! long from life's true bliss shut 

out, 
In night of sin forlorn and wilderness of doubt, 
Prepared am I with thy sad lot to sympathize, 
For o'er my own dim tracks thy dark experience lies. 
Now list and ponder deep, the secret while I tell 
Of all the lore with which angelic bosoms swell. 
Whoso would careless tread one worm that crawls the 

sod, 
That cruel man is darkly alienate from God ; 
But he that lives, embracing all that is, in love, 
To dwell with him God bursts all bounds, below, above." 

RECONCILIATION. 

To bring God back when he my selfhood's sin forsook, 
One little step beyond myself was all it took. 

, JOBS CAT. 

In the widow's house 
There is no fat mouse. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 133 



LIFE'S OFFER. 



Our life sells pearls ; 
And, if we ask it, 
Her wheel, with whirls, 
A golden basket 
Full of them hurls 
Into our casket : 
But for those churls 
Who will not ask it, 
The fire-pain curls 
Where hell must mask it ; 
And in that world's 
Woe lies their task yet. 

EVERT ILL ALLEVIATED. 

Unmitigated evil is as rare 

As wings upon a cat, or flowers of air, 

As rabbits' horns, or ropes of tortoise-hair. 

THE FINITE CONTAINS THE INFINITE. 

On those who love the loving God, 
He does himself complete bestow : 
With no division and no waste, 
He fills each heart with all the heaven : 



134 SPECIMENS OF 

So when men's eyes from earth's low sod 
Behold the moon's transcendent glow, 
Its image, calm and undefaced, 
To each in full perfection 's given. 



THE TRUE GOD. 

A million beats of Man's united heart 
Are fainter than one throb of Ocean's pulse, 
Which thrills her awful veins in every part, 
And throws up waifs of shells and crimson dulse. 

A million tides of Ocean's weltering breast 
Are weaker than one glance that lights the Sun, 
When in the bannered east he breaks his rest, 
His race gigantic round the sky to run. 

A million journeys of the Sun's swift foot 
Are smaller than one limit of the space 
Through which the Tree of Life from Being's root 
Upsprings, powdered with stars, in heaven's face. 

A million Trees of Life, with all their loads, 

But poorly God's profound domain reveal : 

The crowds of worlds that throng heaven's thickest 

roads 
Are letters of a Word his lips unseal. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 135 

A million Words, with universes rife, 
His all-creative might can nowise drain : 
When closing order bounds chaotic strife, 
His Fulness as before doth still remain. 

That Fulness such, in truth's stupendous force, 
That to His thought serene and tender gaze 
The frailest insect, warbling through its course, 
Is just as near as seraph in his blaze. 

Yea, though all worlds of space would be, combined, 

Too small to fit His finger to a ring ; 

Yet is He not to humblest creatures blind, 

But daily spreads their board, and hears them sing. 

Each tear forlorn that trickles down man's cheeks, 

He marks, and pities every aching sigh ; 

To give them compensation ever seeks ; 

Their life-woes shares ; and takes them when they die. 

And in His home, — though pagans swept the halls, 
And glory domed the universal height, — 
If over one poor soul hell spread its palls, 
There would be night, and wailing in the night. 

THE DIVINE JUDGMENT. 

/ 



God asks, not " To what sect did he belong ? " 
But " Did he do the right, or love the wrong ? " 



( 



136 SPECIMENS OF 

THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 

Millions of men the Koran and the Purans read, 
And so the Bible read as many millions more ; 
But all this reading not a single soul can lead 
To full salvation when all outward things are o'er. 
To be upright and kind when thy poor brothers bleed, 
Will aid thy soul beyond all power of formal lore. 



THE UNWALLED HOUSE OF GOD. 

The holy Nanac on the ground, one day, 

Reclining, with his feet towards Mecca, lay. 

A passing Moslem priest, offended, saw, 

And, flaming for the honor of his law, 

Exclaimed, " Base infidel, thy prayers repeat ! 

Towards Allah's house how dar'st thou turn thy feet ? " 

Before the Moslem's shallow accents died, 

The pious but indignant Nanac cried, 

" And turn them, if thou canst, towards any spot 

Wherein the awful House of God is not." 



THE PARTAKER AS BAD AS THE THIEF. 

The sin the same, whether one kills a fish, 
• Or whether he devours it from the dish. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 137 

LIGHT-HOUSE OF IMMORTALITY. 
FROM THE AKHLAK-IJALALY. 

While selfish hatred's storm-flood roars, 
Love, like a beacon's friendly ray, 
Bright-shining on man's fleshly shores, 
Illumes, and yet consumes, his clay. 
Mysterious slave to mortal earth, 
Despotic foe to earthly leaven, 
It melts the dross from out the worth, 
And purifies the soul for heaven. 

THE PURSUERS PURSUING THEMSELVES. 

A band of princes, thirty-two, 
Pursuing once a rebel thief, 
Of wise Gautama came in view, 
And thus addressed they him in brief: 

" Hast thou a robber seen pass by ? 
"We are in earnest search for him." 
Gautama straightway made reply, 
While light broke o'er their spirits dim : 

« 
" Which is for you the better part, — 
For him, or for yourselves, to seek ? " 
The warning question pierced each heart : 
They turned them back, thoughtful and meek. 



138 specimens of 

the buddhist's song : gautama. 

A pilgrim through eternity, 

In countless births have I been born, 

And toiled the Architect to see 

Who builds my soul's live house in scorn. 

O painful is the road of birth ! 
By which, from house to house made o'er, 
Each house displays the kind and worth 
Of the desires I loved before. 

Dread Architect ! I now have seen 
Thy face, and seized thy precept's law ; 
Of all the houses which have been, 
Not one again my soul can draw. 

Thy rafters crushed, thy ridge-pole too, 
Thy work, O Builder ! now is o'er ; 
My spirit feels Nirwana true, 
And I shall transmigrate no more. 

THE GENUINE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 

He only is a true Hindu whose heart is just, 
And he a good Mohammedan whose life is pure : 
Seek right and purity the faithful Christian must, 
And this of heaven will make the honest Pagan sure. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 139 



CONVERSION OF A KING. 



Wijeeta was the richest king on earth ; 
Yet knew his heart of joy and peace a dearth. 
Buddha approached him once, in thoughtful mood, 
And said to him : " Thine aucesters so good, — 
Why did they not their treasure with them take, 
"When forced of life's bright feast an end to make ? 
Ah ! was it not because no man can bear, 
In death, aught but his naked merits there ? " 
The king, appalled, sank back upon his couch ; 
Fierce fears throughout his soul began to crouch ; 
His wealth, for Buddha's sake, he gave away, 
And a recluse became that very day. 

POWER OF A TRUE OR FALSE FAITH. 

When man in error gropes, 
Night under night still opes : 
Goodness is horror then, 
And demons dwell in men. 
But when he thinks aright, 
A fount of dazzling light 
From evil's darkness bursts, 
To satiate his thirsts. 
A faith of truth and love 
Melts hell in heaven above ; 



140 SPECIMENS OF 

A faith of lies, hate, woe, 
Sinks heaven in hell below. 
"Whoever thinks with God 
Doth grasp fate's mighty rod. 



THE LOVER S OFFER. 

Were mine the wealth of Croesus old ; 
Had I as many diamonds bright 
As leaves that shake in summer's light, 
Or sands o'er which the deep hath rolled ; • 

Had I as many purest pearls 

As grass-blades hang upon the lea, 

Or ripples dance along the sea 

When o'er its breast the zephyr curls ; — 

Had I a palace, crystal built, 

And filled as full of golden bars 

As yonder heaven is filled with stars 

When evening fair the skies hath gilt ; — 

Like lordly knights and kingly earls 
With orders were I titled o'er 
As thick as waves that kiss the shore 
When Wind his banner broad unfurls ; — 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 141 

I swear by yon bright worlds above, 
I 'd give them all this blessed night 
To meet beneath this fair moonlight, 
And clasp thee in my arms, my Love ! 

INEVITABLE PUNISHMENT. 

All vice to which man yields in greed to do it, 
Or soon or late, be sure, he '11 sorely rue it. 
Experience deep, howe'er false seemings blind him, 
Surcharged with retribution, out will find him. 
It locks upon his soul a fatal fetter, 
Explodes throughout his face in horrid tetter, 
Over his shameless eyeballs brings a blurring, 
Keeps in his heart a deadly fear-load stirring, 
At all pure joys with fiendish talon snatches, 
The noblest traits from out his being catches, 
Each beam and hope and vision darkens, 
His conscience stuns whene'er towards heaven he heark- 
ens, 
On goading thorns his sleepless longings tosses, 
With salt remorse-foam pleasure's waves embosses, 
Sometimes from phantom-fears impels him flying, 
Sometimes in frantic horrors shrouds his dying, 
Now turns his dearest friends to cease to love him, 
Now spreads avenging Siva's frowns above him, 
Makes this world black with prison-walls and gibbets, 
And, in the next, escape from hell prohibits. 



142 SPECIMENS OF 

The whole creation's strange and endless dealing, 
In spite of shields and veils and ails concealing, 
Proclaims, that whosoe'er is long a sinner 
Can only be by it of woe a winner. 

THE BUTTERFLY'S REVENGE. 

An ugly caterpillar once uplooking 
To a humming-bird, in gorgeous colors gleaming, 
Thus said to him, her furry throat upcrooking : 
" Despise me not, though painful now my seeming 
In shape and guise and movement of each feature, 
And thou art such a bright, celestial creature." 

The rainbow birdling scorned to make replying, 
And gave the wretched insect's love its dooming. 
In grief and birth the poor grub writhed as dying, 
And soon a butterfly, in splendors blooming, 
Uprose from out the slough the proud one hated, 
In dazzling hues, with wings of % wonder mated. 

The humming-bird, unconscious of this changing, 
Above a bush of roses red was hovering, 
When lo ! appeared our gay one in her ranging. 
The hummer, smit with love, himself recovering, 
Began to sigh a sweet and melting ditty, 
And pleaded first for love, and then for pity. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 143 

The butterfly said : " Vain thy suit and urging ; 

For I remember well, though thou forgettest, 

That when from lowliness I was emerging, 

Thou spurnedst her on whom now thy heart thou 

settest. 
By thee, when low and homely, I was scorned ; 
Now thee I scorn, with magic charms adorned." 

THE BITTER CUP SWEET. 

My God once mixed a harsh cup, for me to drink from it, 

And it was full of acrid bitterness intensest ; 

The black and nauseating draught did make me shrink 

from it, 
And cry, " O Thou who every draught alike dispensest, 
This cup of anguish sore, bid me not to quaff of it, 
Or pour away the dregs and the deadliest half of it ! " 
But still the cup He held ; and seeing He ordained it, 
One glance at Him, — it turned to sweetness as I 

drained it. 

WHY SLEEP RESTORES. 

When we are wearied out with toil, 
And bruised with pains of earth's turmoil, 
If for a time of slumber deep 
We lose ourselves in dreams and sleep, 



144 SPECIMENS OF 

We rise, from strength's exhaustless hoard 
Enriched and thoroughly restored, 
"When, but a little while before, 
We were so feeble, drained, and poor. 
Thinker and saint, man good and wise, 
Canst tell me whence this doth arise ? 
Dear friend, I verily can tell 
The cause, and explicate it well. 
With grief and blows when worn and torn, 
If sleep we may, we wake at morn 
Refreshed in every nerve and thought, 
Because this marvel hath been wrought : — 
The instant that asleep we fall, 
The soul escapes its fleshly pall, 
And is absorbed in heaven from this, 
To lave with love and bathe in bliss 
Its stiffened limbs and flagging powers 
Through all the nightly slumberous hours ; 
And when returning morn arrives, 
It fresh from God's embrace revives. 



THE PRIMEVAL CUP OF GUILT, 
OR A SUFI POLEMIC AGAINST CALVIN. 

A mystic cup was mixed of Adam's guilt, 
And o'er the world and through the ages spilt 



ORIENTAL TOETRT. 



145 



It every brightness with a darkness tinged, 

The earth from out its orbit it unhinged, 

It burst discordant through volcanic vents, 

It wrenched all nature's breast in earthquake rents, 

It woke in wasp and brute all hatred's brood, 

It stirred in each fierce breast the thirst for blood ; 

And when in course terrific it had run 

Through every lower grade beneath the sun, 

Its drops on human generations dripped, 

And all their worth and virtue from them stripped. 

Out from that cup the direful stream still flows 

Of poison, blackness, blasting fire, and woes, 

O'erspreads creation with a pall of gloom, 

And rises slowly towards the brim of doom. 

Some sprinkling from that cup has spotted all, 

And plunged them in a hopeless common fall, 

Condemned past hope to writhe in tortures fell, 

Which ne'er can cleanse the destined hosts of hell. 

One little sin that mystic cup did fill, 

And yet it poureth on, and poureth still 

The tainting horrors of all pain and ill ; 

Nor will its dreadful pouring stop at last 

Until the final flame the world shall blast, 

And the everlasting sentence hath been passed. 

When man's poor race exists on earth no more, 

The frightful flood shall cease its issuing roar. 

But then the boundless dregs of that small cup 



146 SPECIMENS OF 

In horrid hell shall all be gathered up, 
To seethe and howl in endless anguish dire, 
The food of deathless worm and quenchless fire, 
Whose wails and dashing waves' eternal din 
Proclaim in glee the victory of sin. 

that I the God of heaven had been ! 
Instead of letting evil triumph then, 
When foul temptation's false and fatal tricks 
The man beguiled the cup of guilt to mix, 

1 would have snatched the enchanted goblet up, — 
Have snatched the mystic draught of that strange cup 
From ignorant Adam's trembling hand and lip 
Before he could have drawn a single sip, 

And dashed the sea of fire it latent held 
Down Satan's throat, the while he baffled yelled ! 
In glory thus I would have crushed the plot 
Which now with failure doth creation blot. 
For Satan's proud success is blazed abroad, 
When evil thwarts the primal plan of God, 
To make a world of fairy mount and glen, 
Possessed for aye by pure and happy men. 



DALLIANCE OF SEA AND WIND. 

The Sea in gladness heaves her yielding form, 
To meet her boisterous paramour, the Storm. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 147 

FIFTEEN FRAGMENTS FROM HAFIZ. 

Sweet Hafiz is not dead, although his body turned 

To dust in Eastern Shiraz centuries ago. 

He lives and strikes the lyre which in his hand then 

burned : 
This day his thoughts through Western nations sound 

and glow. 

I. THE DRUNKEN SAINT'S JUSTIFICATION. 

Know you the true reason and cause why it is that I 

drink ? 
From pride and from folly I strutted and swelled 

through the town : 
And now those detestable vices, from which the saints 

shrink, 
I will in the depths of the ocean of drunkenness drown ? 

II. THE INFRANGIBLE TIE. 

A little Samson is my heart, 
Who breaks his chains with ease apart; 
And at each futile fetter mocks, 
Except the band of Leila's locks ! 

III. THE BLINDING REVELATION. 

Wouldst thou show us eternal life through dazzling rift; 
Then bid the east- wind from thy face that thin veil lift. 



148 SPECIMENS OF 

IV. DULLARD AND GENIUS. 

Did Understanding know how hearts are blest 
When fettered in the locks of loved one's hair, 
The poor devil a moment would not rest 
Till he had lost his understanding there ! 

V. THE REVELLER'S VOW. 

Glass upon glass I will clink ; 
Kiss after kiss I will spend ; 
Draught upon draught I will drink ; 
And I will love without end ! 

VI. THE PRECIOUS FUGITIVE CAUGHT. 

She shyly lifts her eye's blue windowlet ; 
Her heart flies out into my bosom's net. 

VII. THE MONASTERY AND THE INN. 

Never did the gloomy convent win 
Any joy or use for rich or poor. 
Therefore let us throng the tavern door, 
Crying, " Generous host, O let us in ! " 

VIII. THE CHEERFUL WORLD-INN. 

With his morose advice the Dervish gaunt 
Would make my heart so empty and so sad, 
That, were it not for the old inn I haunt, 
Full long ago my life I ended had ! 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 149 

IX. THE EARTH A BITTER CUB. 

The world is bitter as the juice from aloes beaten ; 
Yet know I lips which all its bitterness can sweeten ! 

X. THE GREATER SINNER THE BETTER SAINT. 

Dervish ! does your galling envy make it hurt you, 
When you think that Hafiz' sins the prize of virtue 
Win ? But he that sins like him, O formal weeper ! 
In God's mercy-ocean only sinks the deeper. 

XI. THE SWEETEST MOUTH. 

Let no bard, from the North to the South, 
My Zuleika compare with a bud ; - 
Because ne'er such a dainty sweet mouth 
Had a bud, since subsided the flood ! 

XII. A FRESH MIRACLE. . 

Pupil, genuine wisdom learn. 
Yonder, see that bush of roses : 
How before thee it doth burn, 
Like the burning bush of Moses ! 
Hearken, and thou now shalt hear, 
If thy soul 's not deaf nor flighty, 
How from out it, soft and clear, 
Speaks to thee the Lord Almighty ! 



150 SPECIMENS OF 

XIII. HEAVEN AN ECHO OF EARTH. 

T is but a shadow of the earth's familiar bliss, 
Bright mirrored on the sky's ethereal fonts, 
That fills our breasts with longings nothing can dismiss, 
In tremulous and glimmering response. 

XIV. THE DOUBLE RUBY. 

A double ruby is my fascinating ruin ; 

Long time ago their fatal charm my bosom flew in. 

Whate'er resisting reason says, quite vanquished mine 

is: 
One ruby is thy luring mouth, the other wine is. 

XV. IT WAS BRED IN THE BONE. 

My drunkenness is not a fault of mine ; 
For drunken came I from the hand Divine, 
Which kneaded up my nascent clay with wine. 
Therefore, when, dry and hard, I fainting pine, 
No moisture suits me like the yeasty vine ! 

A ZOROASTRIAN MYTH. R. 

Stir in thy breast, O son ! Devotion's fire about, 
And leave no room therein for all-pernicious Doubt. 

By Doubt alone was evil on the world impelled ; 
And goodness by Devotion only is upheld. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 151 

The Parsee myth this truth as follows has made known. 
Ere earth and heaven were, was Zeruan alone. 

A thousand years, in full Devotion sunk, he sought 
To get a son by whom the world should then be 
wrought. 

The thousand years of pure Devotion now he ends : 
Upon the instant, in his mind fell Doubt ascends. 

He doubting says, " Shall I Devotion's just return 
Obtain, or for a son for ever vainly yearn ? " 

At once the womb of Power that thought's creative 

sperm 
Invades, and makes it pregnant with a double germ, 

Ormuzd and Ahriman ; Devotion's dazzling child, 
And Doubt's demoniac son, false, filthy, black, and wild. 

The moment they were born, creation they began : 
Ormuzd all good things made ; all evil, Ahriman. 

While that one wrought, Devotion's fire supplying 

played : 
Doubt gave the stuff of which the other each thing 

made. 



152 SPECIMENS OP 

While Ahriman his poisonous plans in matter wrote, 
Ormuzd still fanned Devotion's fire as antidote. 

In opposition still these two the world create, 

And bad are those who love the one that good men hate. 

Hold thou by pure Ormuzd, Devotions fire to feel ; 
And let no cause of Doubt prevail to quench thy zeal. 

When Doubt has in Devotion's flame expiring gleamed, 
Then thou art wholly good, and hast the world redeemed. 



ONLY CIRCLES ARE ENDLESS. 

All immortalities are circular in form : 
The transmigration of the soul is truth divine. 
If endless linear progress were each being's norm, 
The whole creation would at last become a line. 



true friendship: from dschamy. 

Sheik Schubli, taken sick, was borne one day 

Unto the hospital. A host the way 

Behind him thronged. " Who are you ? " Schubli cried. 

" We are your friends," the multitude replied. 

Sheik Schubli threw a stone at them : they fled. 

" Come back, ye false pretenders ! " then he said ; 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 153 

" A friend is one who, ranked among his foes 
By him he loves, and stoned, and beat with blows, 
Will still remain as friendly as before, 
And to his friendship only add the more." 



A THOUGHT FROM HASSAN BAR SABAH. 

Life is a violent storm, in which thrust, 
t i 

Man is at best but a handful of dust. 



THE PROMOTION OF DISDAIN. 

The Prophet said, as his disciples tell, 
" Disdain is made the treasurer of hell." 



THE CALL TO EVENING PRAYER. 

One silver crescent in the twilight sky is hanging, 
Another tips the solemn dome of yonder mosque. 
And now the Muezzin's call is heard, sonorous clanging 
Through thronged bazaar, concealed hareem, and cool 

kiosk : 
" In the Prophet's name, God is God, and there is no 

other." 
On roofs, in streets, alone, or close beside his brother, 
Each Moslem kneels, his forehead turned towards Mec- 
ca's shrine, 
And all the world forgotten in one thought divine. 



154 SPECIMENS OP 

SAADI ON ARBORICULTURE. 

Though the water of life from the clouds fell in billows, 
And the ground were strewn over with Paradise' loam, 
Yet in vain would you seek from a garden of willows 
To collect any fruit as beneath them you roam. 

EARTH AN ILLUSION. ^ 

From the mists of the Ocean of Truth in the skies, 
A Mirage in deluding reflections doth rise. 
There is naught but reality there to be seen ; 
We have here but the lie of its vapory sheen. 

GATATRI : THE VEDAS' HOLIEST VERSE. 

Let us in silent adoration yearn 

After the Godhead — True Sun — evermore ; 

Who all illumines, who creates all o'er, 

From whom all come, to whom all must return, 

Whom we invoke to guide our minds and feet 

In our slow progress towards his holy seat. 

THE BEGGAR'S MIRROR. R. 

A beggar of Shiraz once had a looking-glass 
That by this magic power all others did surpass, — 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 155 

Which many dames would wish their mirrors too could 

share, — 
To show an ugly face as if it were most fair ! 

The beggar held this glass in front of every one 
From whom he begged ; and copious guerdons thus he 
won. 

For each with gladness gave who saw himself so fair : 
The gay young lord, the foul old hag, both looking 
there. 

At last the beggar, lying sick, gave to his son 

The glass, and said, " Make use of it as I have done." 

But with the glass at night all empty came he back : 
For he had made a different use of it, alack ! 

He held not up the glass before each passing wight, 
But saw his own face there, and lingered on the sight. 

The father said : " The foolish fruit of idle pride, 
My son, no human heart has ever satisfied. 

Who shows the world in Flattery's glass, is one shrewd 

elf; 
He is a fool who looks therein to see himself." 



156 SPECIMENS OF 

THE DWARF AVATAR. 

The wicked giant, Bali, had obtained 
Supreme control from heaven down to hell ; 
He all the humbler deities had chained ; 
Like rain his cruelties unmeasured fell. 

The highest gods in fear a session called, 
And argued vengeful plans for many an hour : 
From far below he upward looked, and bawled 
An arrogant defiance to their power. 

At length divinest Vishnu forward stepped, 
While round the senate mighty plaudits ran, 
And vowed himself — his consort Lakshmi wept — 
The foe to disenthrone, and ransom man. 

The heavenly synod praised him, though they feared 
His failure through some one of million harms. 
On earth, a puny man, he soon appeared, 
And, as a beggar, asked of Bali alms. 

" What wouldst thou have ? " the horrid despot said, 
And gave the shrinking dwarf a scornful glance. 
O fool ! premonished by no mystic dread, 
And reading naught beneath that countenance ! 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 157 

The little, timid mendicant replies, 
" Give me so much of thy dominion's space — 
The boon is small, but will for me suffice — • 
As I can only by three steppings pace." 

The blinded Bali, mocking, gave assent, 
And looked upon him with contemptuous eye. 
Swift grew the dwarf through such immense extent, 
That one step spanned the earth, one more, the sky ! 

Then looking round, with haughty voice he said, 
« The third where shall I take ? O Bali, tell ! " 
At Vishnu's feet the tyrant placed his head, 
And instantaneously was thrust to hell. 

the mystic's rapture: from mahmoud. 

Mine ego hid the sun,, as would a mountain tall ; 
One ray of light quick smote the mass to atoms small, 
And through the mountain shape of dust full streamed 

the light 
Of thousand suns, all shining supersensually bright. 
Within a drop of dew was chained, by magic guile, 
The banished, vast Euphrates, as a poor exile. 
The earth before me lay, a heap of dusky clods. 
One draught this beggar drank of the pure wine of 

God's, 



158 SPECIMENS OF 

And grew a Shah. Each mote a Caucasus became. 
The black veil rose from round each atom's core of 

flame, 
The welkin roof was rent, and Deity I saw 
Sole brooding o'er a world of shoreless light and awe. 



WHY SIVA S NECK IS BLUE. 

When once of old the demons churned the thickening 

ocean, 
To baffle the design the gods their wits employed. 
There soon resulted, fruitage of the sickening motion, 
A poisonous drug whose fumes all neighboring life de- 
stroyed. 
But Brahma, joining Vishnu, sought with deep devotion 
To turn from men the plot of that demonic crew : 
To Siva spake they ; quick he gulped the infernal po- 
tion! 
And that is what has made his fearful throat so blue. 

A WINE-DRINKER' S METAPHORS. 

As the nightingale oft from a rose's dew sips, 
So I wet with fresh wine my belanguishing lips. 

As the soul of perfume through a flower's petals slips, 
So pure wine passes through the rose-door of my lips. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 159 

As to port from afar float the full-loaded ships, 
So this wine-beaker drifts to the strand of my lips. 

As the white-driven sea o'er a cliffs edges drips, 
So the red-tinted wine breaks in foam on my lips. 

SUBJECTIVITY OF TIME AND SPACE. 

Where is Space ? In the eye. Where is Time ? In 

the ear. 
Light bringeth that one there, Sound bringeth this one 

here. 
Close eye and ear, and you are out of Space and Time, 
In contemplation, rapture, prayer, and dream sublime. 
You build the world according to your pleasure all : 
It rests on Time and Space : through you these stand 

and fall. 

THE FRAGRANT PIECE OF EARTH: FROM SAADI. 

A fragrant piece of earth salutes 
Each passenger, and perfume shoots, 
Unlike the common earth or sod, 
Around through all the air abroad. 
A pilgrim near it once did rest, 
And took it up, and thus addressed : 
" Art thou a lump of musk ? or art 
A ball of spice, this smell t' impart 



160 SPECIMENS OF 

To all who chance to travel by 

The spot where thou, like earth, dost lie ? 

Humbly the clod replied : " I must 

Confess that I am only dust. 

But once a rose within me grew : 

Its rootlets shot, its flowerets blew, 

And all the rose's sweetness rolled 

Throughout the texture of my mould ; 

And so it is that I impart 

Perfume to thee, whoe'er thou art ! " 

THE SPREADING SPECK: FROM MOTANEBBI. 

On every human soul there lies . 

A little dusky speck of sin, 

As small as a mote's eye in size : 

But when that speck doth once begin 

To work, it swift and swift extends, 

Till the whole soul it comprehends, 

And all its powers overclouds 

"With condemnation's thunder-shrouds. 

Then fierce and far the fear-fires flash, 

And dire and dread the doom-bolts dash. 

Thus doth the sin-speck spread, in sight, 

O'er all the soul a baleful night, — 

A blotting night of horror deep, 

That knows no dawn and knows no sleep ! 



.ORIENTAL POETRY. 161 

A MORAL ATMOSPHERE. 

It is as hard for one whom sinners still prevent 

From prayer, to keep his virtue, yet with them to dwell, 

As it would be for a lotus of sweetest scent 

To blossom forth in beauty 'midst the flames of hell. . 



POWER BOUGHT BY PENANCE. R. 

So great Havana's penances and rites austere 
Were, that the gods, beholding them, were filled with 
fear. 

The worlds he had subdued, with all who in them dwell, 
And was obeyed from Indra's heaven to Bali's hell. 

Dread Brahma at his court rehearsed the Veda books ; 
The Sun came down as overseer of his cooks. 

To bear his goblets, Clouds did leave their realm of rain, 
And the swift Wind was his obsequious chamberlain. 

WINE SONG- OF KAITMAS. 

Fill up the goblet, and reach to me some ! 
Drinking makes wise, but dry fasting makes glum. 

What is thy breath but a quaffing of air ? 
Smell is but drinking of fragrances rare. 



162 SPECIMENS OF 

What is a kiss but a draught double quick ? 
Drinking makes blessed, but fasting makes sick. 

Seeing is only a drinking of light : 

Drinketh the ear from all sounds, day and night. 

Fill, then, the goblet, and reach to me some ! 
Drinking makes wise, but dry fasting makes glum. 

A TONE FROM HAFIZ' LYRE. 

Now is the blossoming-time of the roses. 
Maiden, bring wine ! never wait for the morrow. 
Over us joyfully smiles the soft blueness ; 
Quick let us, round the dark field of old sorrow, 
Tread the bright path of to-day in its newness, 
Plucking at once the fresh garlands of roses. 

THE SELF-LADEN CARRIER. 

In love there is no message interwrought : 
It was itself which its own meaning brought. 

THE REVEALING TRIAL. 

Is there not a sure test the deep truth of each man to 

divine, 
When the cow may be brought to the banks of the brook 

of red wine ? 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 163 



THE ZEST OF THE PRIZE. 

Against Life's firm and many-peopled land 
While Passion's tide doth make the pebbles rattle, 
With Glory's pearls it overstrews the strand, 
And wakes afresh Ambition's mighty battle. 

FOLLY FOR ONE'S SELF. H. 

He who is only for his neighbors wise, 
While his own soul in sad confusion lies, 
Is like those men who builded Noah's ark, 
JBut sank, themselves, beneath the waters dark. 

THE PAUSE OF PRUDENCE. H. 

Be not in haste the frail arrow to shoot, 
For it can ne'er be returned thee again : 
When one has killed the good tree for its fruit, 
He may lament it for ever in vain. 

THE ROAD TO KNOWLEDGE. H. 

How hast thou so profound a lore attained ? 
To ask another, I was ne'er ashamed ! 

WISDOItf FOR OTHERS. 

Like a blind man, who bears a torch to light 
The way for other men, but goes in night 



164 SPECIMENS OP 

Himself, is he who for his friends has sight, 
But none his own dim steps to guide aright. 

IDLE THOUGHT. H. 

Wisdom without action is like a bee without honey, that 

sings : 
Ask his vain haughtiness why he thus idly roves about, 

and stings ! 

UNDISHEARTENED ASPIRATION. H. 

From torch reversed the flame still streameth, rising 

straight : 
So struggleth up the brave man stricken down by fate. 

THE TRAGIC CHANGE. 

My hair was black, but white my life : 
The colors in exchange are cast ! 
The white upon my hair is rife, 
The black upon my life has passed. 

THE IMPOSSIBILITY. 

When I have seen, though clad in gold or silk, 
In peace and joy a wicked man or maid, 
t then have drunk a bowl of pigeon's milk, 
And ate the yellow eggs the oxen laid ! 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 165 

THE PATRON. H. 

When the tree with .ripened fruit is loaded, 
Towards the hungry all its rich boughs stoop ; 
They who had a famine once foreboded 
Only have to pluck them as they droop. 
Likewise when the good man 's clothed with power, 
Gladly generous is he with his aid ; 
All the needy gather from his dower, 
And rejoice to rest them in his shade. 



ALL IS EACH, AND EACH IS ALL. 

The sullen mountain, and the bee that hums, 
A flying joy, about its flowery base, 
Each from the same immediate fountain comes, 
And both compose one evanescent race. 

Proud man, exulting in his strength and thought, 
The torpid clod he treads beneath his way, 
One parent Artist's skill alike hath wrought, 
And they are brothers in their fate to-day. 

There is no difference in the texture fine 
That 's woven through organic rock and grass, 
And that which thrills man's heart in every line, 
As o'er its web God's weaving fingers pass. 



166 SPECIMENS OF 

The timid flower that decks the fragrant field, 
The daring star that tints the solemn dome, 
From one propulsive force to being reeled ; 
Both keep one law and have a single home. 

The river and the leaf, the sun and shade, 

The bird and stone, the shepherds and their flocks, 

Are all of one primeval substance made, — 

A single key their common secret locks. 

Each atom holds the boundless God concrete 
Besides whose abstract Being nothing is ; 
Each mind, each point of dust, is God complete ; — 
Who knows but this, the magic key is his ! 

The curdling horrors, doubts, of fear and woe 
Dissolve and flee before his solving gaze ; 
Absorbing light sets death's abyss aglow, 
Fills evil's night an all-explaining blaze. 

Between heaven's bright domains and blackest hell's 
The separating limits swiftly fall ; 
A dazzling flood of glory streams, and swells, 
And interfuses absolutely all. 

RETIREMENT FROM GOSSIP. 

Absorbing thought to worldly company is rude, 
And every mighty passion courteth solitude. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 167 



SCHERIF ETH-THALIK'S WINE-ORB. 

The sun of wine sank in thy mouth, where still its glory- 
reeks, 

And left the flushes of its evening-red upon thy 
cheeks. 



TO DIE IS GAIN. 

We then shall see no more, before the veil all dimly 

blurred, 
But for imagined shall have grasped, embraced for only 

heard. 

THE SOBER DRUNKENNESS. 

Beware the deadly fumes of that insane elation. 
Which rises from the cup of mad impiety ; 
And go, get drunk with that divine intoxication 
Which is more sober far than all sobriety. 

THE CREATION OF THE WORLD. 

Creative thought and passion in a cup 
The meditating Brahm once hurled ; 
And when the seething foam had all dried up, 
The sediment was this bright world. 



168 SPECIMENS OF 



NINE FRAGMENTS FROM THE PREM SAGAR. 

How pitying Vishnu came from heaven, and as a 

peasant-boy, 
At Braj, by pranks filled all the cowherd lads and girls 

with joy, 
The wondrous things he said and did while mortal men 

among, — 
All this has saintly Shukadev in the Prem Sagar sung. 

I. THE MASKED DEITY BETRAYED. 

Before his parents' hut at play, 

The little Krishna Chand one day 

Swallowed some dirt. With eager speed 

His brothers ran and told the deed. 

Seizing a switch, his mother rushed 

To punish him. He shrank, and blushed, 

But firmly did the charge deny. 

She said, " Krishna, tell not a lie ; 

Open your mouth, and let me see ! " 

His mouth he opened instantly. 

She looked, — and there the Three Worlds saw. 

Prostrate she fell in deepest awe, 

And cried, " Thee I no longer call 

My son, but own as Lord of all." 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 169. 



II. THE PERILOUS BOON. 



Bikasur had of penances fulfilled Ins task, 

And promise won of any boon that he might ask. 

" Grant, Siva, that on whom I place my hand, 

He may become a heap of ashes on the land." 

The boon is granted. Lo ! at once Bikasur strives 

To place his hand on Sivas head, whom terror drives 

To fly, as close the steps of his pursuer press. 

Then Hari, Nand's blue son, saw Siva's deep distress, 

And went before Bikasur, and demanded why 

He thus was chasing Siva round the earth and sky. 

And then he said, — when he the whole truth had 

received, — 
" Bikasur ! by some goblin you have been deceived. 
The mighty boon is all a cheat, a vanity : 
Just put your hand upon your own head, and then see ! " 
Bikasur, made by Maia's power both blind and drunk, 
The test applied, and to a heap of ashes sunk ! 
Rejoicing music floated from the heavenly bowers, 
And all the gods applauded loud, and rained down 

flowers. 

III. FOREORDAINED MEANS AND ENDS. 

Whate'er man's destiny may be, 
His mind is changed accordingly : 
With it his heart in union blends, 
And thus come God's appointed ends. 



170 SPECIMENS OF 

IV. THE LIBERTINE'S DOOM. 

Whoe'er the chastity of maid 
Doth ruin while living on the earth, 
He shall in Fate's black noose be laid, 
And drop to hell from birth to birth. 

v. Krishna's cowherdess weeping. 

Her head in bitter woe to earth depended, 
As she wildly tore her long curls ; 
And from her eyes a stream of tears descended 
Like a broken necklace of pearls. 

VI. KING PARIKSHEET's PRATER. 

From this shoreless sea of cares, 
From this world's illusions vain, 
Where my heart each conflict shares, 
And I groan in being's chain, 
Vishnu ! kindest god of all, 
Where the timeless aeons roll, 
Hear me, while to thee I call, 
And emancipate my soul. 

VII. AKRUR'S PRATER. 

Krishna Chand ! from whom all objects rise, 
Belong they to the darkness or the light, 
The opening and the closing of thine eyes 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 171 

Are the immediate cause of day and night. 

Thou art the gloom that broods, the fire that burns ; 

My thoughts I fix upon thy footprints now ; 

To thee my heart through all things ceaseless yearns : 

.Most gracious Lord ! protect me ever thou. 

VIII. PATERNAL AUf HORITT. 



When King Jajati had waxed old, 
He asked each son, Shayone, Yalage, 
" Give me thy youth of joy untold, 
And take instead my mournful age ! " 
Yalage replied, " Not I in^tfuth ! " 
Then King Jajati cursed him sore. 
But quick the younger said, " My youth 
Take thou, let me be old and hoar." 
And King Jajati blessed Shayone, 
And left to him the royal throne. 

IX. THE LIFE-PRESERVER. 

To those who on the world-stream drowning float, 
The name of Krishna is a saving boat. 



THE IDOLATER S PATH. 



Unto an idol's shrine the luring roads that lead 
Are made of sighs and tears which his poor votaries 
bleed. 



172 SPECIMENS OF 

THE SUN AND THE POET'S EYE. E. 

Art thou, Sun ! a fount from which all splendor 

rushes, — 
A fount from which the life of the creation gushes ? 

Art thou a golden shield, on heaven's blue peak uphung, 
Whose radiance, fresh and unobscured, abroad is flung ? 

Art thou a hero stout, thy beams the shafts he shoots ? 
Where is the quiver which to hold such weapons suits ? 

Art thou an eye whose piercing glance all space sur- 
veys, — 
Which grows not dim, but is refreshed by its own gaze ? 

Thou art an eye, O Sun ! an eye like this of mine, 
Excepting that no bound includes the scope of thine. 

Thou mak'st the earth turn round as on its course it 

rides : 
Such is thy love thou wilt behold it on all sides. 

My little eye, to thine immense one when opposed, 
At once begins to blink, is conquered soon and closed. 

Let all who now look up to trace thy path of flame, 
When I am dead turn one kind glance upon my name ! 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 173 



I Thus will Foureed, though soon must darken his fond 

eyes, 
j An endless fame write on the eyeball of the skies. 

LESSON OF submission: from saadi. 

A pilgrim, bound to Mecca, quite away his sandals 

wore, 
And on the desert's blistering sand his feet grew very 

sore. 
" To let me suffer thus, great Allah is not kind nor just, 
While in his service I confront the painful heat and 

dust," 
He murmured in complaining tone ; and in this temper 

came 
To where, around the Caaba, pilgrims knelt of every 

name: 
And there he saw, while pity and remorse his bosom 

beat, 
A pilgrim who not only wanted shoes, but also feet* 

THE TWO WORLD-SCRIBES. 

Earth is a parchment whose back 
Fate's double pencils thus write : — 
Life writeth white upon black, 
Death writeth black upon white. 



174 SPECIMENS OP 

THE TRUTH OF THEISM. 

Over space the clear banner of mind is unfurled, 
And the habits of God are the laws of the world. 

SAADI MORALIZES NATURE. 

The wind that howls around the world's inclement camp 
Cares not that it extinguishes the widow's lamp. 

THE TWIN ANGELS OF GOD. 

Once, arm in arm, the angels Love and Pity 
Were flying forth across the heavenly cope ; 
When, as they left God's vast and blissful city, 
They saw where hell's tormented captives grope. 
A sympathizing tear fell down in sorrow, 
A gentle smile upon the darkness fell. 
That smile spread on as dawning hope's to-morrow, 
That tear extinguished all the fire of hell. 
Then rose the deep abyss, while god descended, 
And turned to angels fair the demon race. 
Such force amazing Pity's tear attended 
Along with light from Love's celestial face. 

VICE NEUTRALIZING VIRTUE. 

He that a vice from year to year inherits, 
Wieldeth an axe against his tree of merits. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 175 



SELF-EXCULPATION. 



Regard no vice as small, that thou mayst brook it : 
No virtue small, that thou mayst overlook it. 

THE INTOLERABLE SPLENDOR. 

So long the light of God burns clear and bright 
As our eyes bear it ; then it fades from sight. 

the buddha's victory. 

The eyes of Wassy wart were blots of blood, 

His awful sword could cleave the world asunder ; 

And, like the vastest mountain, there he stood, 

His hoarsened voice outroaring all the thunder. 

In fiercest rage he dared the Buddha mild 

To fight him then, with any arms he chose. 

To gaze upon his bulk and gestures wild, 

The gods came forth, and all the planets rose. 

To be a shield before his broadening breast, 

He wrenched the sun from out the socket-sky, 

And fearfully the Buddha mild addressed, 

" Behold the arm by which thou now shalt die." 

The unarmed Buddha mildly gazed at him, 

And said, in peace, " Poor fiend, even thee I love." 

Before great Wassywart the world grew dim ; 

His bulk enormous faded to a dove, 



176 SPECIMENS OF 

That hovered where the hating monster loomed, 

And filled with softest notes the space 

Through which his rage's thund'rous accents boomed. 

Celestial beauty sat on Buddha's face, 

While sweetly sang the metamorphosed dove, 

" Swords, rocks, lies, fiends, must yield to moveless love, 

And nothing can withstand the Buddha's grace." 

THE LAST REMEDY. 

The fool, to hide his folly, one well-planned 
Prevention has : it is in his own hand ! 
Where wise men talk, or when they walk or sup, 
Can he not keep his foolish mouth shut up ? 

THE FISHERMAN, LOVE. 

Young Love as a fisherman spreadeth his nets, 
And woman's sweet lips are the bait that he sets : 
All eagerly bite, the men-fish that swim by, 
And then in the flames of desire they must fry. 

SOCIETY MORE THAN PLACE. 

Better where awful mountains rise 
With raging tigers dwell, 
Than share the halls of Paradise 
With men who merit Hell. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 177 

TOO LATE : FROM A HINDU POET. H. 

Hearken, and roll not round so wild 
Thine eyes decoying, lovely child ! 
The joy of youth was long since o'er, 
And what we were, we are no more. 
In the repentance-grove we 've sat, 
And known how vain was this and that: 
And since that time we name, alas ! 
The world a little blade of grass. 

THE CONTRAST. 

Like shadows in the early morn 
Is friendship with a wicked man : 
Part after part is from it shorn. 
But with disinterested friends 
It grows, like shadows in the eve, 
Until the sun of life descends. 

THE EAGLE. 

Against the sky's blue floor his proud crest rubs, 
The distant earth his spoiling talon wrings, 
His eye is the lair of the lightning's cubs, 
The beaten thunders growl beneath his- wings ; 
His vision spills the ocean as a drop, 
And only at the world-walls doth he stop. 



178 SPECIMENS OF 

THE BIRD-KING. 

Dost thou the monarch eagle seek ? 
Thou 'It find him in the tempest's maw, 
"Where thunders with tornados speak, 
And forests fly as though of straw : 
Or on some lightning-splintered peak, 
Sceptred with desolation's law, 
The shrubless mountain in his beak, 
The barren desert in his claw. 

THE VEILED FACE OF DAY. 

Through the forehead of eve the Lord driveth yon star 

as a nail, 
And the thick -spangled darkness lets down o'er the day 

as a veil. 

THE USE OF THE MOON. 

The moon is a silver pin-head vast, 

That holds the heaven's tent-hangings fast. 

NOT FATE, BUT SKILL. 

Diving and finding no pearls in the sea, 
Blame not the ocean, the fault is in thee ! 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 179 

THE TEAR AND THE LAMP. 

Weeping, a tear put out my lamp, and night's 
Deep darkness then encompassed me alone. 
Ah tears ! how oft ye quench the feeble lights 
That faith has in the halls of sorrow strewn ! 



A GLIMPSE. 

The sun and moon together in the evening sheen 
Seeing, while painted clouds like mists of incense curled, 
I said, surely such beauty has never been seen 
Since first the veils covered the Harem of the World. 



BROKEN HEARTS. 

When other things are broken, they are nothing worth, 

Unless it be to some old Jew or some repairer ; 

But hearts, the more they 're bruised and broken here 

on earth, 
In heaven are so much the costlier and the fairer. 

NOT DRESS, BUT NATURE. 

If mean or costly dresses through this globe 
Decide the rank in which men are enrolled, 
Why, then we '11 clothe the wolf in satin robe, 
The alligator in fine silk enfold ! 



180 , specimens of 

beauty's prerogative. 

Thy beauty pales all sublunary things, 

And man to vassalage eternal dooms : 

The road before thee should be swept with brooms 

Made of the eyelashes of peerless kings. 

SENSIBILITY. 

A tear doth not the eye unfeeling swell : 
A precious pearl lies not in every shell ! 

RAIN BEATING THE EARTH. 

The clouds pour on the fields the pelting showers and 

dew; 
The earth heeds not the rain-drops' pugilistic crew, 
Until her bosom from their blows is green and blue. 

THE RESTLESSNESS OF MIND. 

Since the soul, exiled from its God, a haven has sought, 
It has found no anchorage in the ocean of thought. 

THE DIVINE ROSE-TREE. 

God holds the heavenly rose-bush in his hand, 
And starry roses on it thickly stand. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 181 

SALVATION BY MERCY. 

Once staggering, blind with folly, on the brink of hell, 
Above the everlasting fire-flood's frightful roar, 
God threw his heart before my feet, and, stumbling o'er 
That obstacle divine, I into heaven fell. 

THE MYSTERY OF GOD. 

Though God extends beyond creation's rim, 
Each smallest atom holds the whole of Him. 

A CRINAL CONCEIT. 

My hair is black, but mixed with white ; and Fancy 



Saying, Behold a host of Negroes mixed with Greeks 



BESTIR THEE BETIMES. 

Oh ! be thou zealous in thy youth ; 
Fill every day with noble toils, 
Fight for the victories of Truth, 
And deck thee with her deathless spoils. 
For those whose lives are in retreat, 
Their valor and ambition flown, 
In vain the 'larum drum is beat, 
In vain the battle-trumpet blown ! 



182 



SPECIMENS OF 



THE MYSTIC PRAYER OF HAFIZ. 



Quickly furnish me Solomon's ring ; 

Alexander's weird glass be my meed ; 

The philosopher's stone to me bring ; 

Also give me the cup of Jemschid : — 

In one word, I but ask, host of mine, 

That thou fetch me a draught of thy wine ! 

Bring me wine ! I would wash this old cowl 

From the stains which have made it so foul. 

Bring me wine ! By my puissant arm 

The thick net of deceit and of harm, 

Which the priests have spread over the world, 

Shall be rent and in laughter be hurled. 

Bring me wine ! I the earth will subdue. 

Bring me wine ! I the heaven will storm through. 

Bring me wine, bring it quick, make no halt ! 

To the throne of both worlds I will vault. 

All is in the red streamlet divine. 

Bring me wine ! O my host, bring me wine ! 

THE MILD REBUKE. H. 

A blind man, fallen in the night, 
Cried for some one to bring a light. 
A scoffer jeered from folly's camp : 
" Thou canst not even see the lamp, 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 183 

Much less discern things by its beams ; 
And so thy cry is vain, it seems." 
The blind man straightway made reply : 
" To you it seemeth vain, but I 
Conclude that, if a torch were here, 
Its blaze making the whole place clear, 
The first good man that happened by 
Would lead me where my way doth lie." 

INEFFICIENT RESTRAINT. 

The band of thy resolve is a fine hair ; 

The wolf of thy desire would break a chain : 

One day this ravening wolf that band will tear, 
And then thy bitter cries will be in vain. 

THE GREAT LEVEL. 

It is a monitory truth, I ween, 
That, turning up the ashes of the grave, 
One can discern no difference between 
The richest sultan and the poorest slave. 

THE PALM OF DESTINY. 

Fate is a Hand. It lays two fingers on the eyes, 
Two on the ears, one on the mouth, and silent cries, 
" Be ever still ! " Then down in endless sleep man lies. 



184 SPECIMENS OF 

THE DISARMED TERROR. 

After one completely draws 
All the lion's teeth and claws, 
Who would fear his helpless paws, 
Or his boneless, mumbling jaws ? 

HAFIZ ON HIS DEATH. 

Think not I am unhappy when my coffin passes by, 
And when you gaze upon my corse, sigh not, in tears, 

Alas! 
When you fall into sin, then indeed you Alas ! may cry. 
And when my body sleeps in dust beneath the flowering 

grass, 
Talk not of separating absence, for the earth that covers 
My clay will be but a veil hiding the secrets of lovers. 

ENJOYMENT VERSUS IMPROVEMENT. 

One said, " Better a single drop of pleasure, 
Than to possess a hogshead full of wisdom." 
Such thought it fitteth a hog's head to treasure, 
In filthy dregs of sense appointing his doom ; 
But, sooth, one drop of wisdom is far better 
Than pleasure in whole bottomless abysses : 
For sense's fool must wear remorse's fetter 
When duty's servant reigns where endless bliss is; 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 185 

THE TRIPLE MURDER. 

These three men all at once to death the slander-poison 

burns : 
The one who speaks, the one who hears, the one whom 

it concerns. 

THE ROASTED HEN: AN ARAB TALE. R. 

A man once sat with his good wife to eat 
A hen, of which she was for him the roaster. 
A beggar cried, " Some food I do entreat ! " 
But drove him off the satiated boaster. 

He thought not of the old proverbial verse, 
" The full should call the empty to their table." 
Soon through his house came hunger as a curse, 
To get a single hen he was not able. 

From direst poverty he left his wife,. 

And homeless roamed abroad without a brother ; 

But she, in order to preserve her life, 

In marriage gave herself unto another. 

Again she with her husband sat to eat 

A hen, which she for him had been a roasting. 

A beggar cried, " I some of it entreat ! " 

" Give him the hen ! " said he, too meek for boasting. 



186 SPECIMENS OP 

As to the beggar with the food she came, 
Behold ! 't was he to whom she first was married. 
She turned, in tears, with thoughts that have no name : 
Her spouse in wonder asked why thus she tarried. 

She told him then, in full and frank reply, 
All since the first beggar away was driven. 
He cried : " Ah God ! that first beggar was I, — 
Praised be the mercy of all-pitying Heaven ! 

" There is a law which orders Fortune's play, 
And moves the rich and poor upon its lever : 
I begged of him who begs of me to-day, — 
May God have mercy on us both for ever ! " 

THE SINGLE FRIEND. 

Against that fool must all true thinkers laugh, 

Who, counting o'er his friends, thinks most of number. 

It is as if who wants a single staff 

Should with a bunch of reeds his hand encumber. 

THE FAITHFUL FRIEND. 

The true friend is not he who holds up Flattery's mirror, 
In which the face to thy conceit most pleasing hovers ; 
But he who kindly shows thee all thy vices, Sirrah ! 
And helps thee mend them ere an enemy discovers. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 187 

THE SULTAN'S LESSON. 

An aged Sultan placed before his throne one day- 
Three urns : one golden was, one amber, and one clay. 
When with his royal seal the slaves had sealed each urn, 
He ordered his three sons to take their choice in turn. 

Upon the golden vase the word Empire was writ ; 
The haughty word resplendent groups of jewels stud. 
The eldest grasped the golden urn, and opened it, — 
But shrank in horror back to find it filled with blood ! 

The word Glory upon the amber vase shone bright ; 
The luring word fresh wreaths of laurels cluster o'er. 
The second chose the amber urn, — pathetic sight ! 
'T was filled with dust of men once famed, now known 
no more. 

No word inscribed upon its front the clay vase bore, 
And yet for this the youngest prince his choice had 

saved. 
He oped the urn of clay his father's feet before, — 
And lo! 'twas empty, but God's name was there en- 
graved. 

The Sultan to the wondering throng of courtiers turned, 
And asked them which of all those vases weighed the 
most ? 



188 SPECIMENS OF 

Far different thoughts within their various bosoms 

burned : — 
Into a threefold party broke the courtier host. 

The warriors said, " The golden vase, symbol of power." 
The poets said, " The amber vase, emblem of fame." 
The sages said, " The clayey vase, God's name its dower : 
The globe is lighter than one letter of that name." 

Then said the Sultan to his sons : " Remember well 
The meaning of this scene, the lesson of this day. 
When your lives' dust is balanced over heaven and hell, 
Ah ! think, will its renown the name of God outweigh ? " 

ELBOW-ROOM. 

Ten poor men sleep in peace on one straw heap, as 

Saadi sings, 
But the immensest empire is too narrow for two kings. 

FORTUNE AND WORTH. H. 

That haughty rich man see, a merely gilded clod ; 

This poor man see, pure gold with common dust be- 
smeared. 

Start not ; in needy garb was Moses girt and shod, 

When waved and shone before him Pharaoh's golden 
beard ! 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 189 



charity's EYE : FROM NISAMI. 



(Me evening Jesus lingered in the market-place, 
Teaching the people parables of truth and grace, 
| When in the square remote a crowd was seen to rise, 
And stop, with loathing gestures and abhorring cries. 

The Master and his meek disciples went to see 
What cause for this commotion and disgust could be, 
And found a poor dead dog beside the gutter laid ; 
Revolting sight ! at which each face its hate betrayed. 

One held his nose, one shut his eyes, one turned away ; 
And all among themselves began aloud to say, 
" Detested creature ! he pollutes the earth and air ! " 
" His eyes are blear ! " " His ears are foul ! " " His ribs 
are bare ! " 

" In his torn hide there 's not a decent shoe-string left ! " 
" No doubt the execrable cur was hung for theft ! " 
Then Jesus spake, and dropped on him this saving 

wreath, — 
" Even pearls are ' dark before the whiteness of his 

teeth ! " 

The pelting crowd grew silent and ashamed, like one 
Rebuked by sight of wisdom higher than his own ; 
And one exclaimed, " No creature so accursed can be, 
But some good thing in him a loving eye will see." 



190 SPECIMENS OP 



FALSE PIETY. 

He who from love to God neglects the human race 
Goes into darkness with a glass, to see his face ! 

MERIT AND PLACE. 

A jewel is a jewel still, though lying in the dust, 
And sand is sand, though up to heaven by the tempest 
thrust. 

WHAT SAADI SAYS OF WISHES. 

Had the cat wings, no sparrow could live in the air : 
Had each his wish, what more would Allah have to 
spare ? 

THE NOBLEST MAN. 

'Midst noble men they Hatim Tai call 

In generosity the first of all. 

He said : " When forty camels I had slain 

To give my guests, I saw upon the plain 

A man who thorns and thistles plucked with care. 

Disguised I went, and asked, i Why not go share 

With those whom Hatim Tai's house doth feed ? ' 

He said, i Of Hatim's house I have no need 

While my own toil a humble meal can buy/ 

My friends, that was a nobler man than I." 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 191 

IMPEDING PLEASURE. H. 

Who after wisdom flies must guard both foot and wing 
From pleasure's honey, or therein he '11 stick and cling. 

THE FOLLY OF INDIFFERENCE. H. 

" It goes best with me then," said a carousing king, 
" When on the earth grieves me no good or evil thing : 
So let the couriers of Fate their tidings bring." 
A naked beggar, 'neath the window stretched, cried out : 
" How then does your imperial robe surpass my clout ? 
Nothing irks me : I tremble at no sudden shout." 

PRECEPT WITHOUT PRACTICE. H. 

Who learns and learns, but acts not what he knows, 
Is one who ploughs and ploughs, but never sows. 

PATIENCE WINS. H. 

Haste not : the flying courser, over-heated, dies, 
While step by step the patient camel goal-ward plies. 

EVIL INTERFERENCE. H. 

Fan not the hostile spark between two friends that glows ; 
For they will soon embrace, but both remain thy foes. 



192 SPECIMENS OP 

MEANS AND END. 

Wealth must be meant to ease the load of life, 
Not life to load us with the weight of wealth. 
Stealth 's only used to win some aim of strife, 
Not strife 's pursued as means to practise stealth. 



THE HORSELEECH. 

Canst thou tell me what is insatiable ? 

The greedy eye of avarice ! 
Were all the universe a loaded table, 

It never, never could fill this ! 



THE TJSELESSNESS OP ENVY. 

Mean souls wish sorrow to the happy-minded, 
And hate the sun that sweetly smiles upon content. 
But when base owls and bats, by midday blinded, 
Accuse the light, is the sun into darkness sent ? 

SAADI SAYS, NIP THE BUD. 

A sprout of evil, ere it has struck root, 
With thumb and finger one up-pulls : 
To start it, when grown up and full of fruit, 
Requires a mighty yoke of bulls. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 193 

LAW ALONE RELIABLE. H. 

One lucky hit affords no rule ; 

"Who thinks it does, he is a fool. 

The king of Persia once set up 

His costliest ring upon a cup, 

And unto all his archers cries, 

" Who hits that ring, it is his prize." 

In vain the most expert of all 

Essay to shoot it off the ball. 

An inexperienced stripling tries : 

His chance-sped arrow strikes the prize. 

Before he never had bent bow. 

He wisely said, " 'T was luck, I know ; 

And that my fame may still remain, 

I never will bend bow again." 



guilt's pang the worst. 

Beneath the tiger's jaw I heard a victim cry, 
f Thanks, God, that, though in pain, yet not in guilt I 
die!" 

SAADl'S HERALDRY. ■ 

If there were not an eagle in the realm of birds, 

Must then the owl be king among the feathered herds ? 



194 SPECIMENS OF 

WHAT IS WEALTH? H. 

Thus did a choking wanderer in the desert cry : 
" that Allah one prayer would grant before I die ; 
That I might stand up to my knees in a cool lake, 
My burning tongue and parching throat in it to slake." 
No lake he saw ; and when they found him in the waste, 
A bag of gems and gold lay just before his face, 
And his dead hand a paper with this writing grasped : 
" Worthless was wealth when dying for water I gasped." 



FOUNT AND RIVER. 

The bad fount, which a pitcher can hide from your view, 
Feeds a stream which an elephant scarce can wade 
through. 



THE KING'S EXAMPLE. H. 

Once Sultan Nushirvan the just, hunting, 

Stopped in an open field to take a lunch. 

He wanted salt, and to a servant said, 

" Go, get some at the nearest house, but pay 

The price the peasant asks." " Great king," exclaimed 

The servant, " thou art lord o'er all this realm ; 

"Why take the pains to buy a little salt ? " 

" It is a little thing," said Nushirvan, 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 195 

" And so, at first, was all the evil whose 
Most monstrous load now presses so the world. 
Were there no little wrongs, no great could be. 
If I from off a poor man's tree should pluck 
A single apple, straight my slaves would rob 
The whole tree to its roots : if I should seize 
Five eggs, my ministers at once would snatch 
A hundred hens. Therefore strict justice must 
I, even in unimportant acts, observe. 
Bring salt, but pay the peasant what he asks." 

THE BANNER AND THE CARPET. H. 

Once a royal banner bent his head, 

And unto a royal carpet said, 

In the Sultan's palace at Bagdad : 

" See what different duties we have had, 

And how different too is our reward, 

Though we 're servants both of one great lord. 

I, on weary marches, tired and torn, 

Journey, in the van of peril borne. 

Thou, afar from travel's dust and pains, 

And afar from battle's siege and stains, 

In the palace brightly art arrayed 

Where }'oung prince, and dame, and beauteous maid 

Odors scatter on thine every band. 

Thou art blest : but me some menial hand 



196 SPECIMENS OF 

In the rawest blast extends, or holds 
High upon some crag my flapping folds." 
Spake the soft, rich carpet then, and said : 
" Thou dost lift to heaven thy haughty head ; 
I lie here beneath my sovereign's tread : 
As a slave I 'm kept here, nice and warm, 
Thou, ambitious, scorning each low form, 
In the height find'st danger and the storm ! " 



FICKLENESS. 

Hard separation's thorn already grows 
Beneath the heart of every friendship's rose. 

THE BRIEF CHANCE-ENCOUNTER. 

As two floating planks meet and part on the sea, 
O friend ! so I met and then drifted from thee. 

THE THREEFOLD CONDITION. 

That what was born must die, is true, 

And that what dies is born anew. 

O man ! thou know'st not what thou wert of late 

But what thou art at present, learn 

In thought completely to discern, 

And what thou shalt become anticipate. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 197 

INDOCILITY. 

Of what use unto fools is wise discourse ? 

In vain the teacher talks until he 's hoarse. 

As moonlight streams through a crack in the roof, 

So on the hearts of fools shines wise reproof. 



THE TRAITOR SURPRISED. 

O Sudra ! think not thou canst hide from Siva's eyes : 
Bite not the hook beneath a painted bait hid well. 
The man who walked o'er treachery's road to Paradise, 
"WTien at the journey's end, found he was snug in Hell ! 



THE DIFFERENCE. H. 

Seek wisdom, while on earth, as if you were immortal 

there ; 
But virtue, as if death already had you by the hair ! 

DESPICABLE PALLIATION. 

"Who laughingly calls it a good piece of wit, 
When friends too confiding he foully betrays, 
He then should admire, as a hero most fit, 
The man who a sleeper remorselessly slays. 



198 SPECIMENS OF 



THE TWO BLOSSOMS. 



On the world's infected tree, of fruits the mother, 
Two fair blossoms sprinkled are with heavenly dew- 
drops. 
Poetry is one, and Friendship is the other. 
For their plucking, Moslem, Christian, Brahmin, Jew, 

stops. 
That one makes all nature as a loving brother : 
This one, when the heart is weak, each nerve and thew 
props. 

INJURY OR DEFILEMENT. H. 

Avoid a villain as you would a brand, 

Which, lighted, burns, extinguished, smuts the hand. 

UNADVISED CONTEMPT. H. 

Before scorning a man investigate thou him, 
For some contain a mine of harm, yet do not blab it : 
Pass not with careless step across the thicket dim ; 
Beware ! that empty bush a tiger may inhabit. 

HUMAN EVANESCENCE. 

Our life endures — such is its brevity — 
But while a rain-drop falls from cloud to sea. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 199 



TRADITION AND LIFE. 



Be no imitator ; freshly act thy part ; 
Through this world be thou an independent ranger 
Better is the faith that springeth from thy heart, 
Than a better faith belonging to a stranger. 

MORAL COMMERCE. 

Caring not, however cynics censure, 
All the wealth of heart I have I venture, 
And to man 's equator-region send ship 
For the ivory, spice, and gold of friendship. 

RESOLUTE LABOR* 

Howe'er the ignorant decry, 

Howe'er oppose the envious crew, 

Since death comes soon, and brief years fly, 

Thy firmly chosen work pursue ! 

As when the Demons churned the sea 

With Mount Meru, although they found 

Jewels it dazzled them to see, 

Though horrid poison gushed around, 

They drove the mighty churning still, 

Holding the handle closely clasped, 

In spite of sore fatigue, until 

Their hands the bright Amreeta grasped. 



200 SPECIMENS OF 



LIMITATION. 



Each is bounded by his nature, 
And remains the same in stature 
In the valley, on the mountain. 
Scoop from ocean, or from fountain, 
With a poor hand, or a richer, 
You can only fill your pitcher. 

BRAHMINIC CONSOLATION : FROM THE MAHABHARATA. 

Sad friend! thou mourn'st for what it is not well to 

mourn. 
No garb of dark lament have wise men ever worn, 
Or for the living, or the dead. Both youth and age 
The soul in this poor husk doth find, and on each stage 
Of being it again will find, 'neath other veils. 
Heat, cold, pain, pleasure, every earthly thing, still fails. 
The body is the jail of time's swift weal and woe. 
Each comes, departs, and naught remains of all the 

show. 
O Bharat's son ! in patience bear the fates below. 
The wise man nothing can disturb : to him the same 
Are sweet and sour, censure and praise, neglect and 

fame. 
His spirit is divinely calm, his mind supernal. 
That which cVeates all forms is formless and eternal. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 201 

UNIVERSALITY OF GOD. 

Exempt from lust, exempt from love of pelf, 
The wise man acts unconscious of himself. 
He cares not for his action's consequence, 
But feeds devotion's fire with pure incense. 
God is his gift, his sacrifice is God ; 
God is his sacrificial knife and rod, 
Himself, his altar, altar's flame, the sward ; 
God also is the worship's sole reward. 

THE CAUSE AND THE AGENT. 

The wall said to the nail, " What have I done, 
That through me thy sharp tooth thou thus dost run ? " 
The nail replied, " Poor fool ! what do I know ? 
Ask him who beats my head with many a blow ! " 

THE HOLY LIE. H. 

A man-befriending lie, I think, in sooth, 
Far better than a man-destroying truth. 

A king in wrath once bade his servants slay 

A man who had offended him that day. 

The poor man, robbed of hope by this dread stroke, 

With foreign tongue to foulest cursing broke, — 

As in despair one falleth on his sword, — 

And cursed the king with each reviling word. 



202 SPECIMENS OP 

" What says he ? " asked the king. " Lord," straight 

replied 
One who the language knew, and stood beside 
The throne, A he says, Heaven is for him who lives 
In meekness, and his enemies forgives." 
" For saying so divine and just a thing, 
This moment he is pardoned," cried the king. 
" Not so," a second courtier loud exclaimed ; 
" The slave thy soul with oaths reviled and blamed." 
Then rose the king, and said, in accents stern, 
" And if he did, your soul with shame should burn 
To think this good man's falsehood doth so much, 
In Allah's sight, outshine your truth : for such 
A He as his my anger would assuage, 
While such a truth as yours would more enrage : 
And know the lie that saves a human breath 
Is better than the truth that causes death ! " 



TEST OF THE RIVAL GODS. 

'Twixt Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, — as a Puran shows, — 
A grave dispute once raged, and still grew sharp and 

strong : 
The question was, wherefrom the solemn quarrel rose, 
To which one of the three did precedence belong ? 

Then Vishnu said, " If one of you, uprising fleet, 
Can soar to where my head extends in regions dim, 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 203 

Or dive so far as to discern where are my feet, 
At once I will the palm of greatness yield to him." 

For fifty million years, like lightning Brahma soared : 

For fifty million years, like lightning Siva dived ; 

But Siva could not reach where Vishnu's feet were 

lowered, 
And Brahma could not reach where Vishnu's head was 

hived. 

At last the twain, their efforts baffled, back returned, 
And to the great Preserver paid allegiance due. 
Therefore by hosts is incense now to Vishnu burned, 
While Brahma's worshippers and Siva's are so few ! 

TIME, THE MOWER. 

Where is thy sire ? thy loving mother where ? 
Where are the friends who in thy youth did share ? 
They bloomed with thee like trees hard by the shore ; 
The stream still flows, but they bloom there no more. 
So Time, the mower, cuts his fatal swath, 
And mortals see him not across their path. 

SENSUALITY. 

Whom the senses securely have caught, 
He will please himself, there where he lies, 



204 SPECIMENS OP 

Until lust becomes seated in thought, 
And from lust pain and folly arise. 
Driven out of high Purity's hall, 
From his noble estate he will fall, 
Losing memory, reason, and all. 

As a storm on the ocean's dark breast 
Blows a banner's light fluttering folds, 
So his fancies lust blows without rest, 
And all peace from his spirit withholds. 
Truly happy but then shalt thou be> 
When desire disappeared in thee, 
As a stream in the calm of the sea. 

A PERSIAN SONG. 

The mighty globe and human life 

A gloomy ocean rolls around : 

Floods roar on floods, in endless strife. 

The floods with turbaned clouds are crowned. 

The future is a black abyss ; 

The present time alone is sure. 

O youth, spring up ! its joys secure. 

Remember, when upon Kaf s summit 
Great Anka flew o'er every cloud, 
His pinion shook the earth-dust from it, 
Surpassing all things strong and proud. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 205 

He soared that day, he soars not this : 
The present time alone is sure. 

youth, spring up ! its joys secure. 

1 see the midnight of thy hair, 
And of thy lips the morning-red, 
And of thy smiles the day-shine fair ; 
But dawn, day, night, will soon have fled : 
The fairest things we soonest miss : 

The present time alone is sure. 

youth, spring up ! its joys secure. 

A RIDDLE. 

Between a thick-set hedge of bones 
A small red dog now barks, now moans 

(( | onSuo^ UBumq y „ 
— 'Sun.1 j8msu^ oqj, 

THE RIVER OF PLEASURE. 

A dallying stream, in greatest and in least, 
Our wishes as its waves, soft Pleasure flows. 
Insatiable Lust, a monstrous beast, 
Doth ravening in its hollow deeps repose. 

As little birds across the billows dart, 
Licentious fancy lures, and eager passion follows, 



206 SPECIMENS OF 

Despising what it has and can impart, 
Until his prey the greedy monster swallows. 

Amidst that stream a whirlpool's sucking dimple 
Denotes where love begins its headlong course. 
The stream's opposing banks — attend, ye simple ! • - 
Are disappointment deep and sharp remorse. 

The man whose heart is Virtue's chosen door, 
Whom no unworthy lust has e'er betrayed, 
Alone can safely stand upon the shore, 
And through the shrunken stream uninjured wade. 

TO ZULEIKA. 

A poet, attempting to sing of thy charm?, 
Sank into the sea of astonishment's arms, 
Till thought disappeared in bewildered alarms. 
At last, the small shell of one verse from the sand 
He plucked, and succeeded in reaching the strand, 
To lay his sole pearl in thy beautiful hand. 

THE PRICE OF THE PRIZE. 

Wouldst the honey still taste, while afraid of the sting 

of the bee? 
Wouldst the victor's crown wear, without knowing the 

terrible fight? 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 207 

Could the diver get the pearls that repose in the depth 

of the sea 
If he stood on the shore, from the crocodile shrinking in 

fright ? 
With unfaltering toil thou must seek what the Fates 

have decreed 
May be won, and courageously pluck for thyself the 

bright meed ! 

SURENESS OF PUNISHMENT. 

When thou hast drained a swallow's milk, and plucked 
A hog's soft wool, from thorns refreshing juices sucked, 
Seen rocks bear olive-nuts, the sand pomegranates yield, 
A Pariah's will annul decrees the Sultan sealed, 
A harder task to try thy vaunted force remains ; — 
To shield a wicked man from retribution's pains. 

A RIDDLE. 

A soul above it, 
And a soul below, 
With leather between, 
And swift it doth go. 



d 2PP v S ^ s ! j aAisui3 oqx 



208 SPECIMENS OF 



THE ORIENTAL PALM. 



See you, my son, yon ship float o'er the Indian wave ? 
The precious cocoa-palm to it its light keel gave. 

The rudder and the mast, palm-branch or shaft supplies ; 
And for what else the ship has need palm-barks suffice. 

From fibres of the palm are twis^d rope and rail, 
And from its porous web is wrought the swelling sail. 

"Well loaded is the ship, as it the billows cuts, 
Here with the stony-shelled but sap-full cocoa-nuts, 

And there with vessels, made of palm-nuts hollowed 

fine, 
All filled with palm-oil, palm-milk, palm-kraut, and 

palm-wine. 

But in the midst there sits, wise master of the charm, 
A man whose cunning drew all this from out one palm. 

"Within the cabin sits he on a palm-mat soft, 

And a thick palm-thatch shields him from the sun aloft. 

The dress he wears was woven from the palm's silk 

strands, 
And a book of palm-leaves reposes iin his hands. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 209 

At noon a broad palm-hat protects his cheek from tan, 
And gratefully he cools his brow with palm-leaf fan. 

His wants to meet with uses various and benign, 
Through all the Hindu's life the palm is a gift divine. 

And when with parting breath is freed the world's poor 

slave, 
A clean palm-linen shroud wraps him for pyre or grave. 

PROLIFIC SILENCE. R. 

In silence wise men oft great things have to perfection 

brought ; 
And fools as oft have made a most tremendous noise for 

naught. • 

The -mighty sky-wheel rolls about its axis without sound : 
The weaver's rickety spool rattles its clattering course 
around. 

This wooden bobbin only a small piece of linen yields : 
That azure one with starry veil o'erspreads heaven's 
boundless fields. 

THE LONGING- OP HAFIZ. 

From cloistered cell poor Hafiz turns his eyes, 
And Allah prays in supplicating cries : — 
" There is a honey-fount of maiden lips ; 



210 SPECIMENS OP 

0, were I sipping on its crimson brim, 

I would not care how fast this lifetime slips, 

Nor think how soon the sinking sun grows dim ! 

There is a secret place of sweet repose, 

Hid in the breast of blushing maiden rose ; 

O, were I there, I 'd cease these plaining cries, 

And care for nothing more beneath the skies ! " 

THE DOUBLE PLOT. R. 

Three hungry travellers found a bag of gold : 
One ran into the town where bread was sold. 

He thought, I will poison the bread I buy, 
And^eize the treasure when my comrades die. 

But they too thought, when back his feet have hied, 
We will destroy him, and the gold divide. 

They killed him, and, partaking of the bread, 
In a few moments all were lying dead. 

World ! behold what ill thy goods have done : 
Thy gold thus poisoned two, and murdered one ! 

A PEARL OP GREAT PRICE. 

A giant muscle is this world, I said, 
And thou a single pearl within it laid. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 
THE FAIR WINE-BEARER. 

Down sinks the night ; and with a jar of win© 
Comes Allia, and pours the purple shine. 

While from the jar gushes the dark red wine, 
From her fair mouth fall drops of honey fine. 

Come, Allia, and let the ruby wine 
Mix with the honey of thy mouth divine. 

Now quickly pour for me the imperial wine, 
And let my mouth the dainty union sign. 

The flame of my bosom and of this wine 
Pleads hard for those sweet lips of thine ! 



A PERSIAN REVERIE. R. 

O that in some oasis green 
A fount of red wine gushed, 

While round the paradisal scene 
A boundless desert rushed. 

For to that fountain I would go, 
And pitch my life-tent there ; 

That in its quiet I might know 
A bliss beyond compare. 



211 



212 SPECIMENS OF 

Sad men, oppressed with grief and care, 
And boorish spirits, known afar, 

Should never reach that region fair, 
Its calm content to mar. 

Sweet nightingales should scatter round 
Their warblings on the grass ; 

The light gazelle should graze and bound, 
And not a hunter pass. 

There peace profound I would enjoy, 

And Hafiz' rhymes repeat, 
Till pleasure's honey-songs should cloy 

My lips with dripping sweet. 

GOETHE ON HAFIZ. 

If the word is the bride, 
The bridegroom, 't is implied, 
Is the sense, and the twain 
Hafiz weds in his strain. 

FLEETINGNESS OF LOVE. 

Swiftly rises up the peering, jealous Moon, 
Looking down to see yon lovers' tender kissing : 
When a month has gone, she comes again as soon ; 
But the silence old is there, — the lovers missing. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 216 

A LIQUID HOUSE OF GLASS. R. 

Among the hills there sleeps a crystal lake, 
Which, like a glass, a stick or stone can break. 

But on the man who dares that glass to shake 
The Spirits housed beneath it vengeance take. 

Those Spirits there have scooped a mirror-room, 
And overarched its roof with light and gloom. 

The sun shines in that house, all clear and still, 
And trees' cool shadows form its threshold's sill. 

No beast nor bird comes near its liquid doors, 
But drink and bathe they where its outlet pours. 

"When any man looks in that builded spring, 
He sees the Spirits tread its floor and sing. 

Should he disturb the glass, in strange reproof 

A voice cries, "Who has shattered my smooth roof?" 

And nevermore shall mortals look on him, 

Till through the outlet far his corpse doth swim. 

THE CUNNING PRIESTS. R. 

In Mahadura's temple lies a golden shoe, 
Three ells in length. Dost ask, "Who has fit feet 
thereto ? " 



214 SPECIMENS OF 

My son, the god of hunting, who those woods doth 

. thread 
Which so impenetrably o'er this land are spread. 

So rough and thorny is the way, that not a god 
Could hunt in those preserves unless he were thus 
shod. 

Each twelvemonth a new pair are placed that altar 

near, 
Because the god wears out his old ones in a year. 



A believer's shroud, r. 

I saw a Moslem work upon his shroud alone, 
With earnest care, even as the silk-worms weave their 
own. 

In his illness it always near his bedside lay, 
And he wrote Koran-verses on it night and day. 

When with that sacred script it was filled from side to 

side, 
He wrapt it round his body, and in calmness died. 

In that protecting robe, now buried in the ground, 
Still may he know the peace he in its writing found ! 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 215 

HAFIZ' SONG OF THE SAINT. 

Leave, O leave, Abou Nasar ! 
Height and depth and distance far. 

List to reason, and come here, 
In the wine-house, to the bar. 

Glitters in the goblet's blood 
Many a dusky heavenly star. 

Shine here round the clinking board, 
Thoughts as clear as diamond spar. 

Wander to the tavern, then ; 
Sit, and leave the door ajar. 

Hang your lantern in yon nook ; 
Drink, and laugh at priest and Shah. 

In the wine-cup's dregs, behold, 
All your life-grains sprouting are ! 

Glides, while you the beaker lift, 
Past the portal, Fate's dark car. 

Let it pass, and take no heed : 

Bliss like yours there 's naught to mar. 



216 SPECIMENS OF 

For a seat in some wine-house 
Sell the world, and shout, Hurrah ! 

In each wine-drop here your host 
Pours the wealth of heaven's bazaar. 

Brim the cup, and sip the foam, — 
All the earth 's not worth an " ah ! " 

HAFIZ REPUDIATES MEDIATORS. 

Take an example from the roses, 
Who live direct on sun and dew : 
They never question after Moses, 
And why, in heaven's name, should you ? 

THE RESURRECTION SPELL. 

Come not with saddest of sighs, 
Come not with bitterest tears, 
Where the dead Hafiz' form lies, 
At the dark goal of his years. 
Come with a beaker of wine, 
Come with a song on thy lip, 
And at that signal divine 
Will the dead drunkard up skip, 
Join his old voice in thy strain, 
Dance till the stars shout again. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 217 

HAFIZ IN THE JUDGMENT. 

When the day of judgment solemn shall break, 
And the earth's collected races all quake, 
On a throne uplift, and shining divine, 
Shall be seen mad Hafiz, Prophet of Wine. 
Wouldst the sentence know that he will declare ? 
Then attend ; these are the words he will swear : 
" Come, ye drunken ones, be blest on my right ; 
Go, ye sober ones, and sink from my sight ! " 

MELLIFLUOUS SPEECH. 

In vain you undertake to speak a bitter word ; — 
It meets the sweetness of your lips before it *s heard ! 

THE MEED OF HAFIZ. 

Hark! hear'st thou not from heaven those strains of 

music ringing? 
The angel-choir at practice Hafiz' songs are singing. 

THE SPRING. 

The Spring has come to loosen Winter's band ; 
Messiah's breath is through the meadows fanned. 

A writing has been dropped from God's own hand ; 
The magic blossoms as its letters stand. 



218 SPECIMENS OF 

Now Hafiz seeks the wine-house, ancient planned, 
That he the manuscript may understand. 

One cup, — bright shine those hieroglyphics grand ; 
Two cups, — his heart becomes a flaming brand. 

Three cups, — he ravished floats from this world's strand, 
And reads the meaning clear in Houri-land. 



LUTE AND BEAKER: FROM HAFIZ. 

This lute to many a feast has added zest, 
This goblet waited on full many a guest. 

Believer, come ! the wine-house lures ; come, hark, 
And drink ; with cup and lute be wholly blest. 

Their wine and music put to shame the lore 
Of Koran, Puran, Ved, and Zendavest. 

Believer, come ! feel inspiration's breath 

Exhaling through yoiir soul, and through your breast. 

And if the world would catch you in her snares, 
Reject her with the might of one protest. 

Unnumbered sages have rejoiced when soft 
This lute's sweet solace has their hearts caressed. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 219 

Unnumbered kings have smiled to quaff this cup, 
When anxious thought and woe their souls oppressed. 

Through these two charmers dear, unnumbered bards 
Have drowned their pain when grief their lives pos- 
sessed. 

This lute and cup have much life-wisdom won, 
Experience of the East and of the West. 

They know the ancient secrets to relate 
Of Solomon's, of Jemschid's harem-nest. 

They know of celebrated haughty thrones, 
Of many a shattered crown and tattered vest. 

They know the magic fruit of Paradise, 
Which ripens not on this world's boughs at rest. 

All this in their dear circles they impart, 
At feasts, to the clear spirits of the blest. 

They have against the idle host of cares 
Declared a war by open manifest. 

For ages' frost they give a robe of flame, 
For sorrow's fire a raiment of asbest. 



220 SPECIMENS OF 

He in whose mind this witch-lute's music melts 
The core from every mystery shall wrest. 

He through whose veins this god-cup's nectar pours 
Shall riddles read no other man hath guessed. 

Who drains the wealth of both shall see at once 
Dark Ahriman a solved and faded jest. 

These lute-cup strains and streams of tone and taste 
Make of the poorest inn a heaven confessed. 

The pious saint who drinks their breath and blood 
Shall sit, bliss-drunk, upon creation's crest. 

He shall through dazzling skies of pleasure soar, 
With godhead filled, and in delirium dressed. 

He shall through reeling seas of wonder sink, 
Still grasping fast the aim of every quest. 

In joyous peace content, with safety crowned, 
He shall despise each threat, each poisonous pest. 

And when life ends, to heaven he shall spring, 
And prove his bliss by death's supremest test. 

The lute, then, twang ! the goblet clink and kiss ! — 
'T is dying, drunken Hafiz' farewell hest. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 221 

THE KIBLA AND THE DEVOTEE. R. 

The Kibla unto which the faithful turn themselves is 
Mecca ; 

The Kibla after which the royal strive is worldly em- 
pire; 

The Kibla of the trafficker is piles of gold and silver ; 

The Kibla of the lover is the beauty of the loved 
one ; 

The Kibla of the sensual is good eating, drinking, sleep- 
ing ; 

The Kibla of the studious is knowledge, truth, and cul- 
ture ; 

The Kibla of the ravished saint is but the face of 
Allah,— 

The Kibla which is higher than all # knowledge, truth, 
and culture, 

The Kibla which is better than good eating, drinking, 
sleeping, 

The Kibla which is fairer than the beauty of the loved 
one, 

The Kibla which is richer than the utmost gold and 
silver, 

The Kibla which is grander than the whole of earthly 
empire, 

The Kibla which is holier than the holy house at 
Mecca. 



222 SPECIMENS OF 

THE DRAWBACK. 

Better through life barefooted press, 
Than in a pinching shoe ; 

Better no house or home possess, 
Than have a bad wife too ! 



THE CAMELS TABLE. 

The camel's table in the waste is spread ; 
He gladly picks a meal from out the dirt ; 
One pleasant herb is all he asks for bread, 
And one sour weed suffices for dessert. 



TIME OF LIFE. 

The past is a dream, 
The future a breath, 
The present a gleam 
From birth unto death. 



THE SUNKEN SUN. 

Hath the sun not yet sunk with its glitter ? 

Yes, and no, one may swear ! 
Look above, where those gay swallows twitter ; 

It is still seen from there. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 223 

TO A GENEROUS MAN. 

To cloud of rain, refreshing all the land, 
It is not fit to liken thy free hand ; 
For as that gives, it weeps meanwhile, 
But thou still givest with a smile. 

LOVE-BLENDED SOULS. 

My soul is commingled with thine, 
As water is mingled with wine. 

THE NINTH PARADISE. R. 

In the nine heavens are eight Paradises ; 
Where is the ninth one ? In the human breast. 
Only the blessed dwell in th' Paradises, 
But blessedness dwells in the human breast. 
Created creatures are in th' Paradises, 
The uncreated Maker in the breast. 
Rather, O man, want those eight Paradises, 
Than be without the ninth one in thy breast. 
Given to thee are those eight Paradises 
When thou the ninth one hast within thy breast 



224 SPECIMENS OF 

THIRTY TRANSLATIONS FROM MIRTSA SCHAFFY. 
I. A PROPHECY TO BE FULFILLED. 

Through all lands shall thy verses, O Mirtsa Schaffy ! 
Be borne forth, and the tones of thy voice be heard 

sounding : 
The brave thoughts and live words of thine utterance 

free 
Shall go over the world, in sweet echoes rebounding. 

II. A DEFENCE OF THE POETS. 

The thistle asks the red-ripe rose, 
" Why art not also thou a thistle ? 
The ass might eat thee as he goes, — 

But now thou art not worth a whistle." 
» 

The goose, with accent patronizing, 
Asks the bulbul, " Thou useless beast ! 
"Why dost thou not, life sacrificing 
Like me, afford to man a feast ? " 

So the philistine asks the poet, 
" What good does thy song do the state ? 
Henceforth why not as well forego it, 
And be to good works dedicate ? " 

O ye philistines, geese, and thistles ! 
Each one his proper calling plies : 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 225 

Because, forsooth ! an idiot whistles, 
Shall wise men therefore not be wise ? 

III. THE GROUND OF DRINKING. 

The best ground is the ground of wet gold 

In the depth of a beaker : 
The best mouth is the mouth, from of old, 

Of the wine-praising speaker. 

IV. A PERSIAN SERENADE. 

In the mosque of true love, 
See me kneel at the shrine ; 
Hear my heart call above 
For an answer from thine. 

With delight, or with scorn, 
Dost thou hark while I sing ? 
Throw a rose or a thorn, — 
Life or death it will bring ! 

V. SATIRE UPON MIRTSA JUSSUP. 

Surely Mirtsa Jussuf as a critic was born, 
For his taste there is nothing sufficient to please : 
The bright day is so clear he condemns it with scorn. 
He regards with contempt every man whom he sees, 
That his face has a nose its fore-front to adorn ! 



22G SPECIMENS OF 

He dislikes the soft rose that impregnates the breeze, 
Since beneath it by search he can find a sharp thorn : 
And he loathes all the splendors of sunset and morn. 

Every fact that perplexes his head he thinks wrong ; 
How it vexes and irks him ! how anxious is he ! 
His conceit never dreams that himself in the throng 
Is a mere speck of foam on the breast of the sea. 
In sharp discord with art, and with nature more strong, 
He goes fretting about ; and calm Mirtsa Schaffy 
With a roguish grimace makes him hasten along, 
And extracts from his gall the sweet charm of this song ! 

VI. EMULOUS LOVE ! TO BODENSTEDT. 

As towards one lofty goal we drive, 
In one entanglement we strive, 
Both I and thou. 

My heart holds thee, and me holds thine ; 
Though sundered, yet conjoined we twine, 
Both I and thou. 

My wit caught thee, thine eye caught me, 
And as two fish we swim one sea, 
Both I and thou. 

Yet not like fish, but through the air, 
We sailing soar, an eagle pair, 
Both I and thou ! 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 227 



i/ 



VII. LINES TO JUSSUF, THE PLAGIARIST. 

Better stars without shine, 
Than the shine without stars. 
Better wine without jars, 
Than the jars without wine. 
Better honey without bees, 
Than the bees without honey. 
Better please without money, 
Than have money, but not please ! 



VIII. PRIESTS PERSECUTE THE RADICAL. 

Who loveih the truth, the bridle must hold in his hand : 
Who thinketh the truth, with foot in the stirrup must stand : 
Who speaketh the truth, for arms must with wings be 

equipped : 
Who telleth a lie, — says Mirtsa Schaffy, — shall be 

whipped ! 

IX. FRAGMENT OF A SONG TO ZULEIKA. 

What is the blooming rose's cup, where nightingales may 

sip, 
Compared with thy more blooming mouth, and thy much 

sweeter lip ? 
What is the sun, and what the moon, and what each 

glowing star ? 
They burn and tremble but for thee, still ogling thee 

from far. 



228 SPECIMENS OF 

And what am I, my heart, the love-mad songs that I 
create ? 

We are the blessed slaves thy beauty doomed to cele- 
brate ! 

X. IMPROMPTU WELCOME TO A FRIEND. 

Come in the evening and come in the morning ; 
Come when I ask you, and come without warning : 
Mirtsa Schany, with you when a-meeting, 
Always rejoices, and his heart gives you greeting. 

XI. INTOXICATION OF LOVE. 

She but wept my drunkenness, 
And my utter sunkenness ; 

And no pity I found. 
O to be for ever drunk, 
And to be for ever sunk, 

In thy white arms drowned ! 

XII. MIRTSA SCHAFFY ON EYES. 

A gray eye is a sly eye, 
And roguish is a brown one : 
Turn full upon me thy eye, — 
Ah, how its wavelets drown one ! 
A blue eye is a true eye ; 
Mysterious is a dark one, 
Which flashes like a spark-sun ! 
A black eye is the best one. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 229 

XIII. TRUTH AND PRUDENCE. 

The fulness of truth to express is most dangerous now ; 
Yet, Mirtsa Schaffy ! ever noble and truthful be thou. 
Nor as a false light on the marshes of lying be left : 
All beauty is true ; and from beauty be thou never reft. 
Yet, every treatment perverse to avoid or outreach, 
Thy wisdom be veiled in a raiment of flowery speech ; 
As clustering grapes, nearly bursting with daintiest juice, 
Are hidden by leaves and green tendrils from sight and 
abuse. 

XIV. ADMONITION IN REVELRY. 

For pleasure's bright sport the carelessest seeker 

All through the wide world to the South, 
When Mirtsa Schaffy took up the red beaker, 

With sayings of wit in his mouth, — 
As, drinking, his heart grew ever more jolly, 

He saw, o'er the goblet's foamed rim 
Uprising in pomp, to judge the world's folly, 

And fearfully frowning on him, 
A dreadful avenger mount from the wine-lake, 
And speak to remorse for wisdom's benign sake. 

XV. THE DARK TRANSITION. 



Where ends wrong-doing 
Begins long rueing. 



230 SPECIMENS OF 

XVI. A SQUIB FOR THE WISE MAN OF BAGDAD. 

Mirtsa Jussuf is a much-learned man ! 

Now reads he Hafiz, and now the Koran, 

Dschamy, Chakany, Saadi's Giilistan; 

Here steals an image, and there steals a flower, 

Now robs a casket, and now strips a bower. 

What has been often said says he again, 

Sets the whole world in his plagiarized strain, 

Tricks out his booty in scrambled-up plumes, 

Spreads himself, and the name poet assumes ! 

Otherwise lives and sings Mirtsa Schaffy : 

Not a purloiner from others is he ; 

Glows his own heart as a guide-star in gloom ; 

Scattering far a celestial perfume, 

And with no stolen productions bedressed, 

Bloom a whole garden of flowers in his breast. 

XVII. LOVE, THE GATE OF HEAVEN. 

When, on a day, the gates of Paradise 
Stand open for the good as their reward, 
Great hosts, both men of virtue and of vice, 
Will look in doubt and terror to the Lord. 
But I, whatever be the others' fates, 
Shall stand, by doubt and fear quite unconcerned, 
Since, long before, to me on earth the gates 
Of Paradise through thee were open turned ! 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 231 

XVIII. LAMENT FOR DEPARTED DATS. 

When, as my life's appointed courses wend, 
The blessed day of youth is ended quite, 
'T is true remembrances, like stars, ascend ; 
But then they only show that it is night ! 

XIX. THE SONGS OF MIRTSA SCHAFFf . 

As the floating raiment glances round thy limbs, 
So the rhyming music hangs around my songs : 
Charming is the lure that to the robe belongs, 
Fairer far the dazzling beauty it bedims. 

XX. MIRTSA SCHAFFY TO HIS YOUNG BRIDE. 

Where rose aloft old Mount Elborz, 
His top the cloud-world reached : 
Spring blushed upon his flowery floors, 
While snows his forehead bleached. 

So I, as ancient Mount Elborz, 
Have frost upon my brow : 
While, blushing at my summer doors, 
A beauteous Spring art thou. 

XXI. THE WINE OF THE SOUL. 

Once, as Mirtsa S chaffy sat a quaffing clear wine, 
His heart's pity grew vast, his mind's wit grew divine. 



232 SPECIMENS OF 

He rose up, gave his lute a melodious clang, 
And, beginning to sing, it was thus that he sang : 
" As the hallowing flames of the wine I inspire, 
And, they gush o'er my lips, touching all with their fire, 
I in seas of wild ravishment limitless swim, 
And a crystalline bliss fills the scene to its brim. 
Such a joy to young Adam was given ere the Fall 
O, I would it were poured o'er humanity all ! 
Could my body, dissolving to wine, only fall, 
And each world be a drop in the flood of the All, 
What a grand resurrection we then might acquire, 
Coming forth from that bath in new strength and fresh 
fire! 

XXII. THE POET'S OFFERING. 

I, in my glowing songs, from out the skies 

Snatch sun and moon and stars, 
And lay them as a burning sacrifice 

On Beauty's altar-bars. 

XXIII. MIRTSA SCHAFFY DEFENDS HIS THEMES. 

Doth it displease you that I sing 
Of few things only as divine ? 
Of naught but roses, love, and spring, 
And nightingales, and wooing wine ? 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 233 

Which were the best, that I should praise 
Will-o'-the-wisps and wax flambeaux ? 
Or to the Sun's eternal rays 
Fresh panegyrics still compose ? 

While, like a sun that shines abroad, 
I pour my raying songs around, 
The beautiful I do applaud, 
And not what 's on the common found. 

Let other bards their lyres attone 

To wars, and mosques, and fame of kings ; 

To roses, love, and wine alone 

My fingers strike the melting strings. 

O pure SchafFy ! how fragrant are 
Thy verses on these lovely themes ! 
Thy songs are strains without a jar, 
While others' best are painful screams. 

XXIV. FINAL SATIRE ON THE BAGDAD SAGE. 

Wretched Mirtsa Jussuf ! all your sneers I despise ; 
While you sulk, with gay heart through the world I am 

tripping : 
And instead of returning your hatred and lies, 
Only see, how this beaker of wine I am sipping ! 



234 SPECIMENS OF 

Retribution enough is inflicted on you, 

In that nothing below your fastidiousness pleases ; 

While for me springs delight from the stars and the 

dew, 
From the birds and the hills, from the flowers and the 

breezes. 

Sprawling Mirtsa Jussuf with great awkwardness walks ; 
How he wrinkles his brow, as with thought it were 

laden ! 
And with all who pass by he finds fault as he stalks, 
Because not as he goes goes each man and each maiden. 

So the ox, as he rolls with unwieldiest gait, 
And his voice is a hoarse and detestable bellow, 
Thinks he must for this cause the sweet nightingale 

hate, — 
That so lightly it flies, and its song is so mellow ! 

XXV. MIRTSA SCHAFFf TO HIS WIFE. 

Of Joseph in the Egyptian* land, 
The handsomest of mortals brave, 
T was said, to him Jehovah's hand 
One half of all earth's beauty gave. 

But when this prince at last was dead, 
His thrown-off beauty wandered forth ; 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 235 

From year to year she roamed and sped 
From land to land through all the earth. 

For this command had been decreed : 
" Thou shalt thyself nowhere enthrone, 
Except where thou shalt find, indeed, 
Kind love and wisdom both in one." 

At many doors she faintly knocked 
Of huts and temples costliest : 
Each one for her was quick unlocked, — - 
In none of them she stayed, a guest. 

But when she came, Hafisa fair ! 
To thee, a final home she found, 
Where sweetness and discretion rare 
"Were, once for all, together bound. 

XXVI. WISE MEN UNNOTICED, WERE THERE NO FOOLS. 

Shall I laugh or shall I wail it, — 
That the most of men are such asses ? 
Borrowed wit, how they retail it ! 
A fresh thought their brains never passes. 

The shrewd Maker, — how I thank him 
That the world is filled so with ninnies ! 
Else the wise man had none to rank him 
O'er the rest, and fame none could win his. 



236 SPECIMENS OF 

XXVII. CLOSE AT HAND. 

The wise man will not roam afar 

For what at home his finding naught can hinder 

He will not try to pluck a star 

To kindle with its light a piece of tinder. 

XXVIII. MODERATION. 

The rose who doth not pick, 
Its thorn will him not prick : 
To-day, then, be content 
To snuff its fragrant scent ! 

XXIX. LIFE DEEPER THAN BOOKS. 

To learn the best experience of nations, 

Search not through ancient books, in dusty heaps : 

By far the choicest of all revelations 

Is that which from the nearest fountain leaps. 

XXX. THE UNRENEWABLE HOUR. 

The winter bears no buds, 
The summer yields no ice : 
The fire which young hearts floods 
The old man feels not twice. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 237 

THE BEGGAR'S REVENGE. R. 

! 

I The king's proud favorite at a beggar threw a stone : 
He picked it up, as if it had for alms 'been thrown. 

He bore it in his bosom long with bitter ache, 
And sought his time revenge with that same stone to 
take. 

One day he heard a street mob's hoarse commingled 

cry: 
The favorite comes ! — but draws no more the admiring 

eye. 

He rides an ass, from all his haughty state disgraced ; 
And by the rabble's mocking gibes his way is traced. 

The stone from out his bosom swift the beggar draws, 
And, flinging it away, exclaims : " A fool I was ! 

'T is madness to attack, when in his power, your foe, 
And meanness then to strike when he has fallen low." 



ACTIVITY. 



Good striving 
Brings thriving. 
Better a dog who works, 
Than a lion who shirks. 



238 SPECIMENS OP 

THE DIVINE GAZER: FROM MAHMOUD. 

As thy beloved's eyes are mirrored in thine eyes, 
God's spirit, painted so, within thy spirit lies. 



THE LURE OP PLEASURE. R. 

A fount-o'ershading tree stands near the highway-side, 
And many a good fellow, pausing there, has died. 

For in the fountain's depths a dragon lies asleep : 
Sits on the tree a bird, his constant watch to keep. 

The bird's sweet song allures the unwary wanderer 

near : 
Then sings he loud, so loud the dragon wakes to hear. 

The thirsty traveller drinks, — the dragon darts aloft, — 
And on the tree the fatal bird is singing soft. 



DANGEROUS INTERFERENCE. 

If you should chance to see two dragons mixed in fight, 
As mediator come not you between them ; 
For they may make a peace at the unwonted sight, 
And straightway your poor form divide between them. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 239 

CONDITIONS OF SAFETY. H. 

Be thou a poor man and a just, 
And thou mayst live without alarm ; 
For leave the good man Satan must, 
The poor the Sultan will not harm. 

THE BEST OF GOOD WORKS. 

" Of all good works of men, which is the best ? " 
A young man once a prophet thus addressed, 
And this reply the prophet on him pressed : 
" From strife exempt, good works together chime, 
And all are beautiful each in its time." 

TREACHEROUS PAYMENT. 

Serve not thy belly with such zest : 
He is a most ungrateful guest. 
Who serves him most and best at first, 
He finally will treat the worst. 

ASSIMILATION. 

The wise man never heard a joke 
But living wisdom from it broke: 
The fool no wisdom ever learned 
But it in him to folly turned. 



240 SPECIMENS OF 

DEATH AMONG THE GODS. 

Between divine and human life what is the odds ? 

A human life is but a watch-tick to the gods. 

Their hour has many ticks; their day has many an 

hour; 
And many days fill up their year's enormous dower. 
But when threescore and ten of those large years a god 
Has told, he is touched by death's appropriating rod. 
And all those years like arrows fly in heaven's bowers, 
Because in bliss unmixed they pass more swift than 

ours ! 

WORLDLY SUCCESS. 

Vulgar souls surpass a rare one, in the headlong rush ; 
As the hard and worthless stones a precious pearl will 
crush. 

THE GOOD OP SUCCESSION. 

The mighty Khosru whispered once to his beloved 

Shireen, 
" If stayed the crown with one, it were a prize indeed, 

I ween." 
Shireen replied, " The blessing of its change dost thou 

not see ? 
Did it remain for aye with one, it ne'er had come to 

thee?" 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 241 



THE DEEPER THOUGHT. 



Sankara Atchareya held the wise man's faith, 
That naught is real here, but empty as a wraith. 
One day a hostile Brahmin to his friends observes, 
" Drive we an elephant towards him, and if he swerves, 
He is a hypocrite ; if not, he is a saint." 
Accordingly, to ride him down they made a feint. 
Sankara fled aside at once. They ask, " O why 
Before a mere illusion did you stoop to fly ? " 
Sankara says, " There was no elephant, no flight ; 
The whole was nothing but a dream's deceptive sight." 

BENEFICENT DESIGN: OR NATURAL THEOLOGY. 

The cocoa-palm leaves infidels without excuse, 
For nine and ninety are its common uses : 
In hardened carelessness they wait a hundredth use 
Until some new discovery introduces ! 

PROUD HUMILITY. 

In proud humility a pious man went through the field ; 
The ears of corn were bowing in the wind, as if they 

kneeled : 
He struck them on the head, and modestly began to say, 
" Unto the Lord, not unto me, such honors should you 

pay." 



242 



SPECIMENS OF 



MOHAMMED S OPINION OF POETRY. 



Beneath God's throne a dazzling treasure lies, 
Whose opening key is but the poet's tongue ; 
Without that key the wondrous hoard's supplies 
Could ne'er be brought on earth to old and young. 

THE BAD POET: FROM DSCHAMT. 

Two poets sat to eat a dish of burning broth. 

Through blistered lips one cried, by agony made wroth : 

"'T is hotter than the sulphur, which, when you are 

dead, 
The fiends in deepest hell will pour upon your head." 
The other said : " Such fate to you could give no fright ; 
You would but have one of your couplets to recite, 
To chill, throughout, the furnace of infernal night. 
One verse, like those to which your brain has given 

birth, 
If uttered in the realm that flames beneath the earth, 
Or written on the gate of hell, would, in a trice, 
Put out the fire, and turn the Devil's blood to ice." 

moaseddin's generosity. 

For when the sea of Moaseddin's gifts began to swell, 
The sun itself was but a pearl, the sky its upper shell. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 243 

COLOR OF WINE AND GLASS. 

Give me, fair boy ! the wine and glass : 
One red, the other white, alas ! 
Two gems from out one coffer rich, 
Love both has painted to that pitch : 
One rosy as his joy in blow, 
One pale as his despairing woe. 



THE SOUND AND THE HEARER. 

Mewlana Dschelaleddin once proclaimed 

That music was the noise of heaven's gates : 

A foolish man, who heard this speech, exclaimed, 

" So harsh the heaven-doors sound, it through me 

grates." 
Mewlana Dschelaleddin straight replied, 
" I hear those gates on opening hinges ride, 
But you, when on the closing hinge they gride." 

MATHEMATICAL LOVE. 

My heart 's a point, round which, in fixed curves of 

dawn, 
The beauty of the fair one 's as a circle drawn : 
Desire's divided pains are living radii, 
Thick stretching from the centre to periphery. 



244 SPECIMENS OF 

THE TIMOROUS GIANT. 

The sun aslant and low in heaven hung ; 
The pigmy a stupendous shadow flung ; 
A giant sat upon the mountain's head, 
Beheld the shadow, and in terror fled ! 



THE NIGHT VISIT. 

I sat beside a taper's flame ; 
The Loved One unexpected came. 
I thought the time to sunrise drew : 
It seemed my taper thought so too ; 
The breezy light she shed about 
Made it grow dim, and flicker out. 



SCHANFERI, OR THE VENGEANCE-OATH FULFILLED. 

Schanferi, the peerless runner who outstrips the swiftest 

steed, 
Whom an arrow whizzing from the bow-string scarcely 

can outspeed, 

Holding towards the' tribe Salaman rancorous and 
deadly hate, 

Swore to kill a hundred of them his revenge to sa- 
tiate. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 245 

Nine-and-ninety he has slaughtered ; for the hundred 
but one more : 

Schanferi, himself, outmatched, is slain within the en- 
tered door. 

* 
As his severed head from off his body rolled upon the 

hearth, 

One, of tribe Salaman, kicked it on a pile of ord'rous 

earth. 

" Schanferi, the peerless runner, — death has overtaken 

him. 
Ere he could fulfil his vow and heap his hundred to the 

brim." 

Swiftly, from the skull he kicked, a splinter like a dag- 
ger flew, 

Smote the mocker dead, and thus the hundredth fated 
victim slew I 



SLEEPLESS LOVER AND TURTLE-DOVE. 

Turtle-dove ! that keepest me awake, 

Thy breast and mine with love's deep longings ache. 

Thy woe is loud, mine silent in the night : 

But tears, wanting to thee, bedim my sight. 

Love's treasure thus is halved between us twain : 

To thee the plaints, to me the tears remain. 



246 SPECIMENS OF 

THE POET AND ALEXANDER. R. 

To Alexander came a man in garb with tattered fold, 
Bringing a poem splendidly adorned with silk and 
gold. 

The king demands : " Why hast thou not unto thy body 

lent 
Some of the pains upon this manuscript so largely 

spent?" 

The poet says : " The law of labor is, that each must 

drive 
At his appropriate trade, if he would honor it and thrive. 

It is my work majestic thoughts to clothe in fit ar- 
ray ; 

But honor's robes — the king knows how to cut and 
give away. 

I here have set thee forth in lasting praise and fame 

enrolled, 
And left it unto thee for this to have me dressed in 

gold." 

Amidst his loud-applauding courtiers, Alexander bade 
The bard at once in gold-embroidered garments to be 
clad! 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 247 

THE IDEAL PHILOSOPHY : FROM MAHMOUD. 

Nothing is the mirror, and the world the image in it : 
God the shower is, who shows the vision every minute. 



THE AVOIDED CLUMP OP PALMS. R. 

On yonder hill, where stand those seven tall palms, 

once raged 
A battle as terrific as was ever waged. 

The world's two dreadest monsters, frights to all that 

live, 
We saw unto each other there a taming give. 

One monster by the other one was crushed amain, 
And the survivor by the dead one then was slain. 

Long time those palm-trees to approach we did not 

dare : 
In vain from far their precious fruits we saw them bear. 

Because the thicket near a tiger for his lair 
Had taken, and he howled, bloodthirsty, there. 

When in the morning looked those palms alluringly, 
The grumbling tiger made each frightened comer flee. 



248 SPECIMENS OF 

But once, as we were looking towards those palms at 

dawn, 
We saw a branch down from the highest summit drawn. 

The branch, now up, now down, with strangest motions 

went, 
As in a serpent's coils it here and there was bent. 

Upon those twistings gazing, quite a space it takes 
For us to recognize the giant queen of snakes : 

As thick as a large man, and sixty feet in length, 
We calculated, and enormous was her strength. 

Her tail aloft was wreathed around the palm-tree's top ; 
Her jaws were near the ground, upon her prey to pop. 

Wide open were they for the helpless little beasts 
By fate allotted for this dreadful huntress' feasts. 

She seemed — we from the tiger's wrathful growl could 

hear — 
To intrude upon his beat, and in his lair to peer. 

Then stepped he out to battle, dauntless champion like : 
The mighty serpent spired in angry act to strike. 

And as he sprang to clutch beneath her haughty throat, 
She downward shot her head, and him from under smote. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 249 

He shrank convulsive, as she with a single bite 

A great piece from his bright striped belly tore outright 

She holds him fast, and from the palm all slowly swims 
Fold after fold, to let her lace about his limbs. 

Her fangs soon choke his frightful yell with dripping 

clots, 
And soon compressed him breathless have her rigid 

knots. 

She is too weak to crunch the life left in his body lithe ; 
And so, for aid, she towards the palm begins to writhe. 

Against the trunk she draws the tiger, and a crack 

Is heard, as break the bones which form his lordly back. 

He lies upon the ground ; and she, exhausted, heaves 
Herself up in the palms, to rest amidst their leaves. 

On that the first day of the fight we stood in fear, 
A few and far : for who would dare to venture near ? 

The second day the number of spectators grew ; 
Their courage rose, and nearer to the scene they drew. 

We saw her through the bushes, but we did not feel 
Disposed to trouble her, preparing for her meal. 



250 SPECIMENS OF 

She, with a yellow drool, red lumps has pasted thick 
Of the repulsive carcass ; in her throat they stick. 

This gorging most obscene the whole day occupied, 
But when we left at night, she seemed quite satisfied. 

The third morning an eager crowd came streaming fast, 
Of women, children, and old men. All fear had passed. 

There lay the victress, swoln immensely, and half 

dead : 
The triumph-feast with sleep her glutted stomach fed. 

She safely killed the tiger, and then took her rest ; 
But such a fearful meal no creature could digest. 

The people rushed upon her with swift blow and shout, 
And in ten thousand fritters scattered her about. 

Then quick they went, delivered from their deep alarms, 
And plucked the fruit from off those long-forbidden 
palms. 

MOHIJEDDIN AT THE RUINS OF SEHRA. 

The place where courts and hosts once glittered thick, 
Is now a waste which makes one sorrow-sick. 
On all sides yesterday were heard gay songs ; 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 251 

To-day are hushed the migratory throngs. 

One bird the echoes of a broken heart 

Sang, sadly as if soul from frame would part. 

I said, " What piteous hap dost thou grieve o'er ? " 

He said, " The time that will come back no more ! " 



AN ARAB ADVENTURE. R. 

Teabbata Scherran, in time of war, 
A spy, went forth, as eve was growing dunner ; 
His friend, Amru Ben Barrak, with him went, 
And so did Schanferi, the matchless runner. 

They paused about the middle of the night, 
A-near a fountain where a palm-grove darkled, 
Like hot and panting deer, their thirst to slake : 
The silent moonbeams on the water sparkled. 

Teabbata Scherran, the doughty, spake : 
" I hear of some man's heart the muffled working ; 
It is, I think, some anxious foeman's heart, 
Who, hidden here, for us in arms is lurking." 

They said : " The only sound that we can hear 
Is clearly but the gurgling fountain's rustle : 
If thou discern'st the blows of any heart, 
It doubtless is thine own faint bosom's bustle." 



252 SPECIMENS OF 

He takes a hand of each companion then, 
And both upon his naked bosom places, 
Crying, " The steady strokes that beat there, feel, 
And say if me a timid heart disgraces." 

" Indeed, thy heart makes stroke with even pulse, 
Like his who is entirely free from terror ; 
But in such heat the stoutest heart might thump- 
Come, let us drink ; we frankly own our error." 

Ben Barrak stooped him down, the first, and drank, 
His hand meanwhile his trusty sword-hilt feeling. 
Refreshed, then rose he up, and said, aloud : 
" No secret foe yon palm-clump is concealing ; 

But if there be a foe, and he be near, 

Then let him snort ! " said Barrak, and loud laughed he. 

The runner, Schanferi, descended next, 

And while he moved, the cooling water quaffed he. 

The runner, likewise, soon returned, but said, 
In Barrak's ear, " Not where that spring aspireth, 
But yonder, lies the foe ; and not Amru, 
It is Teabbata that he desireth." 

They say, "Now fear has saturated all 
The burning nerves through which thirst lately fried 
thee." 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 253 

He cries, " I am as hotly parched as you ; 
Behold ye now how much you have belied me." 



At once the bold Scherran throws down his sword, 

No fibre of his dauntless courage shrinking, 

And helpless lies upon the edge, and drinks, 

With slow-drawn gulps, just like a wild bull drinking. 
• * 

The ambushed foes dare not rush forth in front, 
To seize the drinking bullock open-handed ; 
But from behind they fling around his arms 
A netted rope, strong-woven, many-stranded. 

" Ben Barrak ! " calls Teabbata, " come too ; 

For thou hast brought me to this plight unhandsome : 

Thou, Schanferi, run back and tell the Shejk 

To haste with bloody sword and win our ransom ! " 

THE ESCAPING BIRD. R. 

Where, in the sacred North, the glittering mountains 

rise, 
There lives a bird which wears a changing coat of dyes. 

He is green in Spring, in Summer has a yellow tint, 
In Autumn red, goes white through Winter's fleecy 
mint. 



254 SPECIMENS OP 

What for ? In order that in plumes of fitted hue 
He through the changing seasons may his course pur- 
sue, — 

Spring's herbage, Summer's grain, Fall's leaves, and 

"Winter's snow: 
The cause is not mere pleasure, it is likewise woe ! 

He thus escapes the harm the sportsman's glance por- 
tends ; 
Because his raiment always with the landscape blends. 

He is blest who has his life in such a garb infurled, 
And so can lose himself unnoticed in the world. 



INDESTRUCTIBLE FRIENDSHIP: FROM DSCHAMY. 

My bosom's dazzling lamps were lighted at my friend ; 
My bosom's far-seen lamps no smoke nor ashes leave ; 
From him and me the chain of friendship naught can 

rend ; — 
Of its soft rings who can the ring-dove's neck bereave ? j 

THE HERETIC BREAST. 

The two-and-seventy sects on earth caressed, 
Collective dwell in every human breast. 



I 

oriental poetry. 255 

sajib's escape from the great shipwreck. 

Life-embarked, out at sea, 'mid the wave-tumbling roar, 
The poor ship of my body went down to the floor ; 
But I broke, at the bottom of death, through a door, 
And, from sinking, began for ever to soar. 

ARAB HOSPITALITY. 

Lift up, slave ! the torch on high, 
That any traveller may spy. 
If thou a guest dost bring to me, 
I will that instant make thee free. 

The ship of the moon through the air-ocean swam with- 
out traces ; 

The glimmering stars not a ray shed beyond their own 
faces. 

I looked to the sky's azure tent, where Orion already 
Stood watching by night, and his sword in its belt 
glittered steady. 

So I in the door of my house stood, as night round me 

darkened, 
And heard a sole traveller's foot, with such sharpness 

I hearkened. 



256 SPECIMENS OF 

It was not the lion's proud tread, his poor enemy 

crushing : 
It was not the step of the roe, the dewed grass lightly 

brushing. 

It was not the robber's sly creep, nor a swain from 

sleep broken : 
It was the slow, faltering step, of a stranger sure 

token. 

I thrust my good sword in its sheath, waved a brand 

brightly burning, 
To show that a sheltering roof for a guest was here 

yearning. 



THE POET SAJIB. 

As pen sweet Sajib takes the beak of nightingale ; 
The fragrant page on which he writes is rose-leaf 

pale. 
For such a pen and page what fitting ink appears ? 
Ah ! Sajib's ink is fiery wine and blinding tears. 



THE THOUGHT-JEWEL. 

The wondrous gem of thought Tschintamani is named ; 
Who knows it not is to be pitied, — to be blamed. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 257 

Who owns this stone can each conception realize, 
Fulfil all dreams that in his yearning bosom rise. 

Who bears it in his soul has wish-fulfilling power : 
Who lays it on his brow, his mind is cleared that 
hour. 

Through his bright, deepening eye its owner it betrays, 
And through the finer wit that in his talking plays. 

Hast thou that gem ? Let no one snatch it from thy 

grasp, 
And thou hast all that mightiest monarch's crown can 

clasp. 

mussud's praise op the camel. 

With strength and patience all his grievous loads are 

borne, 
And from the world's rose-bed he only asks a thorn. 

THE TWO RULERS. 

While the great generations depart, 
And full ages and firmaments roll, 
Mighty love is the lord of the heart, 
And pure truth the bright king of the souL 



258 SPECIMENS OF 

SUFISM defined: from husseiri. 

The true Sufi is he whose lofty strife 
The most essential essence has obtained, 
And through destruction of his mere self s life 
An indestructible existence gained. 
The true Sufi is he alone, I say, 
Who what he has within his head lays down, 
Gives what he has within his hand away, 
And takes alike time's fickle smile and frown. 

the madness of piety. 

Let the Loved One but smile on this poor heart of 

mine, 
I will sell the two worlds for one drop of his wine. 

TRUTH OUT OF CONVULSION : FROM DEWLETSCHAH. 

Whene'er the sea upheaves its foaming hosts, 
Pearl after pearl it tosses on the coasts. 

THE GREAT FLOWER-VASE. 

With blooming splendors God has sown creation's 

flower-bed. 
And in the flower-cup of space has hung it overhead. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 259 

SELF-UNIVERSALIZATION. 

The true journey from " me " to " God " is then com- 
pletely made, 

When "me" is free from "thee," as fire is from the 
smoke's foul shade. 



THE TOILING HERO. 

The earnest aspirant is he who knows 
No aim besides the throne of God, and, till 
He reaches that, allows of^ no repose, 
And no companion has on plain or hill. 



THE GOAL AT THE BARRIER. 

I hotly strove to reach the race-course goal, 
When seeking God beyond myself to find. 
But now I see, since He was in my soul, 
The first impatient step left Him behind. 

THE HUMBLE SUPPLIANT. 

I heard a camel-driver in the waste thus sing and 

groan : 
" I weep, but you know not the reason why my tears 

are spent. 



2bU SPECIMENS OP 

I weep from a depressing fear that you will strike your 

tent, 
And, swift departing, leave me in this desert-world 

alone." 



BEAUTY AND LOVE! FROM MEWXANA DSCHAMT.\ 

Before eternity to time had shrunken, 

The Friend deep in his glorious self was sunken. 

Around his charms a firm-bound girdle hovered : 
No one the lonely path to him discovered. 

A mirror held he to each wondrous feature, 
But shared the vision's bliss with not a creature. 

In cradling Naught's abyss alone he rocked him, 
No playmate's face or gambols sportive mocked him. 

Then rose he up — swift vanished all resistance — 
And gave the boundless universe existence. 

Now Beauty, sun-clear, from his right side beameth; 
Love, moon-like, quickly from his left side gleameth. 

When Beauty's flame lights up the cheek's red roses, 
Love fans a fire from which no heart reposes. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 261 

Between them glows a league which forms no cinder, 
But from all Beauty's food creates Love's tinder. 

When Beauty 'midst her snaring ringlets lieth, 
Then Love the heart within those fair locks tieth. 

A nest is Beauty, Love the brooding linnet : s 
A mine is Beauty, Love the diamond in it. 

From God's two sides they came, twin emanation, 
To chase and woo each other through creation. 

But in each atom's point, both, clasping, enter, 
And constitute all being's blissful centre. 



THE BATTLE OF SUNRISE. 

The red dawning proclaims a victorious fight ; 
From the sword of the sun flows the blood of the 
night. 

DAT AND NIGHT. 

The sun and moon, which light by day and night the 

earth o'er all its lands, 
Are but two lanterns which the Day and Night bear, 

burning, in their hands. 



Zt)2 SPECIMENS OF 

The sun and moon are weights within the clock of God's 

tremendous might ; 
One rises and the other sinks alternate with the Day 

and Night. 

The sun and moon are tables twain, with gleaming gold 

and silver paved, 
On which, as types of praise, mysterious Day and Night 

are broadly graved. 

The sun and moon are tapers, raised in front, to lend 

some guiding sight 
To us bewildered moths, whom Day and Night drive 

round the endless Light. 

The sun and moon are doors to rooms between the 

eager-gazing globes, 
Wherein the Day and Night for ever interchange their 

blending robes. 

THE PARTING LOVERS I FROM THE CHINESE. 

She says, The cock crows, hark ! 
He says, No, still 't is dark. 

She says, The dawn grows bright. 
He says, O no, my Light ! 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 263 

She says, Stand up, and say, 
Gets not the heaven gray ? 

He says, The morning star 
Climbs the horizon's bar. 

She says, Then quick depart : 
Alas ! you must now start. 

But give the cock' a blow, 
Who did begin our woe ! 

THE TWO TEMPLES. R. 

There was a people once, by wisest counsels steered, 
Who temples twain to Virtue and to Honor reared. 

Excepting through the first, — they stood so, wall to 

wall, — 
No man within the second one could get at all. 

As forecourt unto Honor's temple Virtue's stood. 
"Through merit praise is reached," — such was the 
moral good. 

An age did those two temples thus together stand, 
And all was noble-toned and prosperous in the land. 

But long ago did Virtue's solemn temple fall ; 
And Honor's shrine, profaned, is open now to all. 



264 SPECIMENS OF 

INSTANTANEOUS SALVATION. 

If any fiend of hell, laid in a chest of molten steel, 
Subdues his will, and with a humble mind on God 

reposes, 
His penal chest, the hottest berth that sense-filled soul 

can feel, 
Becomes at once a most delicious bed of breathing 

roses. 



THE WINE-SELLER I FROM MAHMOLD FERJUMENDI. 

The Loved One bears the cup, and sells annihilation : 
Who buys his fire ecstatic, quaffs illumination. 

The giant Sun is dizzy, going and returning, 

So swiftly, up and down, for one poor droplet burning. 

Even Wisdom's self in drunkenness profound is sunken : 
Both earth and heaven are drunk, and all the angels 
drunken. 

The wine-house is the world, and all things in it beak- 
ers : 
The Friend each goblet holds, and we are eager seekers. 

Within the cup, upon the threshold, heaven lieth : 
The nest is there towards which the soul for ever flieth. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 265 

The angels, in carousal high, their tankards clinking, 
Pour out from heaven on the earth their lees of drink- 
ing. 

They drank pure wine themselves, and joyously they 

shouted, 
When from the dregs that fell on earth fair Eden 

sprouted. 

In sin and sorrow here long time have I been roaming : 
A sea of tears I 've shed is wide around me foaming, 

And every tear 's a drop of blood. A poor wayfarer, 
I longingly await the lovely goblet-bearer. 

He comes, — a flood of molten music round him gush- 
ing;— 

He comes, — all veils are raised, the universe lies blush- 
ing- 

I snatch the cup, and, lipless, quaff the godhead's 

liquor, 
As into unity of bliss the self-lights flicker. 



A WHITE ELEPHANT. 

The rare white elephant is widely worshipped in Siam, 
As a fit representative of the unseen I Am. 



266 



SPECIMENS OF 



THE THREE CHINESE SECTS. 



The Buddhist priests declare their Fo in the abyss to 

be. 
Say Lao's followers, " Paradise lies in the Eastern 

Sea." 
But great Confucius' pupils look on real things around ; 
Before their eyes the airs of spring, fresh-blowing, brush 

the ground. 

FOUR FRAGMENTS FROM DSCHELALEDDIN RUMI. 

O renowned Dschelaleddin Rumi ! thy sO deep-lighted 

brain 
Was of mysteries, lovely and wild, an unlimited 

main, 
Whereon sailed the full fleet of all poetry's beautiful 

ships. 
A pearl-fount was thy tongue, overflowing the rim of 

thy lips. 

I. THE CREATION AND THE CREATOR. 

The whole material universe is but a small cupful of 

force, 
Dipped out from the unfathomable spring of God's 

dynamic source. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 267 

II. SUFIST1C THEOSOPHY. 

Whene'er I love a slave, cries God from being's highest 



I do become his eye, ear, mouth, his search and what 

he seeks : 
And thus it is through me alone that he perceives and 

speaks. 

III. THE LAW OP INSIGHT. 

To critic cold and sly God never yet appeared ; 
No riddle ever was by logic solved and cleared : 
It takes a pure and humble heart the Lord to see, 
And free-winged wit to soar through mystery. 

IV. THE HAUNT OF WISDOM. 

Seek truth from thought, and not from mouldy books, 

O fool ! 
Look in the sky to find the moon, not in the pool. 

PRESCRIPTION FOR A REPULSIVE HOUSE. 

That your house is unfriendly, you say, my young 

friend ! 
And to change it, you think still of ways without end. 
Only bring you a dear friendly wife to that place, 
And you friendliness then in all corners shall trace. 



268 SPECIMENS OP 

THE GREATEST GILDER. 

True poetry is gold ; and one who is well skilled, 
With little of that metal pure both worlds may gild. 



THE RICH MEN AND THE WISE MEN. K. 

A wise man by a rich man once was with some shrewd- 
ness asked : 

" How happens it that wise men oft are seen at rich 
men's doors, 

While ne'er at wise men's doors rich men are seen, 
barefaced or masked ? " 

The wise man through the rich man's soul this piercing 
answer pours : 

" It is because the wise men know that they of wealth 
have need, 

While the rich men of wisdom's use know not. 'T ' 
sad indeed ! " 



INVERSION OF TRUTH. R. 

What use the preacher's truth and earnest exhortation ? 
The hearer makes thereof inverted application. 

A miser listened once to a discourse most moving, 
The habit of unstinted charity approving. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 269 

He said : " I never was before so much affected : 
How beautiful is charity, when well directed ! 

i 

So clear and noble is the duty of almsgiving, 

At once I '11 go and beg, as sure as I am living." 

THE BIRTH OF VENUS. 

The sweet Goddess of Love leaves the sea, with be- 
diamonded locks : 

Though it not as the cradle of Form, but Deformity, 
rocks ; 

In its caverns profound, horrid monsters- all prowlingly 
roam, 

While the fair Queen of Beauty is born from its glit- 
tering foam. 

CHARACTER MORE THAN INSTRUCTION. 

Doctrines didactic, by most wise advices backed, 
Can really do no good, if nature doth not act. 

They 're like the recipe to cure the bites of snakes, 
Which from a wandering quack an ignorant person 
takes. 

Of all the snakes that bite, not each is poisonous 

found : 
A little toad is quickly laid upon the wound. 



270 



SPECIMENS OF 



Innocuous was the bite, unvenomed was the tooth : 
Yet if the wound be healed, it was the toad forsooth ! 



MAN AND WOMAN. R. 

From mere dead earth was man created, hard and 

cloddy ; 
But woman afterwards was made from man's live 

body. 

And thus arises the distinction of the sexes, 

A question which so many empty heads still vexes. 

The man is, as a first creation, genuiner : 
The woman is the clearer, softer, and diviner. 

For he was from the inorganic dirt unfolded ; 
But she came forth from clay which life before had 
moulded. 



FRUITLESS REMORSE: FROM FIRDOUSI. 

When cruel deeds are done, in vain relents 
The doer's heart, and mournfully repents. 
So when a fire has raged, the smokes that rise 
In useless lamentation drape the skies. 



oriental poetry. 271 

. god's boy-lover: or, the mystic's suicide. 

FROM FERIDEDDIN ATTAR. 

There was a sailor once, in many harbors hailed, 
Who full a thousand times had o'er the ocean sailed. 
He had a boy, majestic as the sun at noon, 
And lovely as at evening is the cloud-poised moon. 
His cheek was rosy red, and heavenly blue his eye ; 
So straight his shape, the cypress could not with him 

vie. 
The father was a pious man in every way, 
The blameless youth pure as a breath of breaking day. 
At last the father must another voyage make, 
And will from fervent love his darling with him take. 
As to the strand they come, the crew are weeping 

there ; 
For each himself from brothers, parents, friends, must 

tear. 
They go, bidding their loves adieu, from door to door : 
And in the resurrection-day they '11 meet once more. 
" Be quick," a sailor loudly cries, " and ready make, — 
Behold, in th' east, propitious breezes for us wake." 
Now each one's farewell business closes in a trice, 
And with huzzas they leap on deck as brisk as mice. 
The waves the vessel rock upon the cradling deep, 
The shrieking passengers into the corners creep. 



272 SPECIMENS OP 

The father and his son too step aboard apace, 

And from the deafening crowd and clamor reach their 

place. 
The sail is spread ; the ship the even billows rides, 
As through the unimpeding air an arrow glides. 
The youth says : " Father, why didst thou exchange our 

life 
Of beauteous peace, to face the wrathful ocean's strife ? 
No house is on the waves, no palace on the sea : 
Come back, and on the flood again I will not be." 
Then says the father : " All the world, my child, behold, 
Driven right and left, and near and far, by lust of gold. 
'T is sweet to sail the sea, for when the danger 's o'er, 
Great wealth and honor is the fruit the danger bore." 
To him the boy : " Father, no prize this brings, me- 

thinks ; 
For fame or pleasure thus won soon to nothing sinks. 
Father, alas ! thy vain discourse has given me pain ; 
O let me leave the sea, and go on shore again ! " 
Replies the father : " Dearest boy, give me thy trust : 
Compared with thee, my gold and silver are but dust. 
My child, where'er I look, there is of thee some trace ; 
The earth, moon, sun, and sky are mirrors of thy face. 
'T is but from love for thee that I the ocean plough : 
Shouldst thou go hence, O son ! my life would fail me 

now." 
" Dear father, thou know'st not the mystery aright : 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 273 

Let me reveal to thee the Absolute's own light. 

Know, father, in the heart I dwell of the Alone : 

Simurg am I, the mountain Infinite my throne. 

A revelation saw I from the flood upshoot, 

Saw rise from th* sea an image of the Absolute." 

i% Dear soul ! " then said the father, " cease from such 

discourse : 
Before an old man boastest thou thy wisdom's source ? 

infant ! with the shell of Law be thou content : 
Truth absolute is not as sport to children sent." 

" Father," replies the youth, " my eye towards home is 
turned ; 

1 see the way for which my heart has ever yearned. 
The sea 's a symbol how one must destroy self s root : 
Upon the inmost selfhood now exults my foot. 

Love waves a flaming torch, and goes as guide before. 
Reason begone ! who follows Love needs thee no more. 
I see but One, and quickly fling the rest behind ; 
His love's bright eye alone I seek to find." 
In rage the father cries : " Silence this instant keep, 
Pert babbler ! ere I throw thee in the yawning deep. 
My precious gem, in need of reason thou dost stand ; 
The Absolute is not for thee, but Law's firm land." 
" Thou understand'st me not," the love-drunk stripling 

cries : 
" Know in each soul the hidden Loved One slumbering 

lies. 



274 SPECIMENS OF 

Know that I to myself seem as the Sea of Life : 

I see my spirit with thee and all beings rife. 

Why shall I not the truth announce ? — not I am heard : 

I fade away, and God himself speaks through my 

word. 
Wouldst cast me in the sea ? Ah, father ! quickly do : 
There, lost to self, the wave will give me life that 's true. 
Father ! I am the Loved One : Godhead through me 

gleams : 
Incessant Revelation in my bosom streams. 
And Revelation says, ' Thy soul 's a prisoner chained 
In the Ship of Time and Space: whoever sinks has 

gained/ 
Says Revelation, ' Swiftly leap beneath God's waves : 
'T is thus thy riddle, deathless Soul ! solution craves.' 
I am God, father, and my being sinks in Him, 
Even as a drop within the sea's stupendous rim." 
He shouts, and springs amidst the waves from where 

he stands. 
The crew with bitter grief lament, and wring their hands. 
As in the sun a pure snow-flake dissolves to tears, 
The beauteous youth beneath the flood so disappears. 
The father gazes where that plunge a gurgling makes : 
A piercing groan from out his anguished bosom breaks. 
Then, realizing all, sudden he looks around, 
Steps to the ship's frail edge, — is gone with silent 

bound. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 275 

Like points within a circle stand the crew all dumb : 
Spell-bound, each stands, like a pearl in the muscle 
numb. 

CARELESS TRUST. 

My mind I still will keep free from perturbing pains, 
Though destiny run through the night with slackened 
reins. 

THE HIGHEST TRANSMUTATION. 

Of all the famous alchemies, this is the chief: — 
Upon a hundred thousand pounds of bitter grief 
A single carat's weight of wine absorbing burns, 
And instantly to joy the heap of sorrow turns. 

PECULIAR SERVICE OP A FRIEND. 

In all uncertain straits thy way by counsel trace : 
Two helping judgments joined, for truth shall never 

lack : 
Man's mind a mirror is, which showeth him his face : 
Has he a friend ? The mirrors twain reveal his back ! 

THE GRAVE A GREEN TENT. 

A furloughed soldier, here I sleep, from battle spent, 
And in the resurrection I shall strike my tent. 



276 SPECIMENS OF 

THE SINNER AND THE MONK : FROM SAADI. 

In Jesus' time there lived a youth so black and dis- 
solute, 

That Satan from him shrank, appalled in every at- 
tribute. 

He in a sea of pleasures foul uninterrupted swam, 

And gluttonized on dainty vices, sipping many a dram. 

Whoever met him in the highway turned as from a 
pest, 

Or, pointing lifted finger at him, cracked some horrid 
jest. 

I have been told, that Jesus once was passing by the 
hut 

Where dwelt a monk, who asked him in, and just the 
feast had shut, 

When suddenly that* slave of sin appeared across the 
way. 

Far off he paused, fell down, and sobbingly began to 
pray. 

As blinded butterflies will from the light affrighted 
shrink, 

So from those righteous men, in awe, his timid glances 
sink; 

And like a storm of rain the tears pour gushing from 
his eyes. 

" Alas and woe is me ! for thirty squandered years," 
he cries, 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 277 

" In drunkenness I have expended all my life's pure 
coin; 

And now, to make my fit reward, Hell's worst dam- 
nations join. 

O would that death had snatched me when a sinless 
child I lay ! 

Then ne'er had I been forced this dreadful penalty to 
pay. 

Yet if thou let'st no sinner drown who sinks on mercy's 
strand, 

O then in pity, Lord ! reach forth and firmly seize my 
hand." 

The pride-puffed monk, self-righteous, lifts his eyebrows 
with a sneer, 

And haughtily exclaims : " Vile wretch ! in vain hast 
thou come here. • 

Art thou not plunged in sin, and tossed in lust's devour- 
ing sea ? 

What will thy filthy rags avail with Jesus and with me ? 

O God ! the granting of a single wish is all I pray ; 

Grant me to stand far distant from this man, in the 
judgment-day." 

From heaven's throne a revelation instantaneous broke, 

And God's own thunder-words thus through the mouth 
of Jesus spoke : 

" The two whom praying there I see, shall equally be 
heard: 



278 SPECIMENS OF 

They pray diverse, — I give to each according to his 
word. 

That poor one, thirty years has rolled in sin's most slimy 
deeps, J 

But now, with stricken heart and streaming tears, for 
pardon weeps : 

Upon the threshold of my grace he throws him in de- 
spair, 

And, faintly hoping pity, pours his supplications there. 

Therefore, forgiven, and freed from all the guilt in 
which he lies, 

My mercy chooses him a citizen of paradise. 

This monk desires that he may not that sinner stand 
beside : 

Therefore he goes to Hell, and so his wish is gratified." 

The one's heart in hte bosom sank ; the other's proudly 
swelled : 

In God's pure court all egotistic claims as naught are 
held. 

Whose robe is white, but black as night his heart be- 
neath it lies, 

Is a live key at which the gate of Hell wide open 
flies! 

Truly not self-conceit and legal works with God prevail ; 

But humbleness and tenderness weigh down Salva- 
tion's scale. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 279 

FAREWELL ANGUISH OF A HUMBLE HEART. 

O Friend ! thou findest friends enough like me ; 
But I shall never find a Friend like thee. 

THE SACRAMENTAL BLUSH. 

Love's candles burn, through doming day and night, 
Upon the holy altar of her heart, 
And, blushing in her cheeks, their lovely light 
Makes every pulse with thrills of worship start. 

THE MOTH, THE LIGHT, AND THE WAX : FROM SAADI. 

As once, at midnight deep, I lay, with sleepless eyes, 
These words between the moth and light did me sur- 
prise. 
The moth kisses the flame, and stiys, with tender sigh : 
" Dear radiance ! I rejoice from love for thee to die. 
My love, thou diest not, yet anxious groans and strong 
Break loudly from thy heart, through all the darkness 

long!" 
The bright flame says : " O moth ! whom love to me 

attracts, 
Know that I also burn with love for this sweet wax. 
Must I not groan, as more my lover melting sinks, 
And from his life my fatal fire still deeper drinks ? " 
As thus she spake, the hot tears coursed her yellow 
cheek, 



280 SPECIMENS OF 

And with each tear crackled a separation-shriek. 
Then from her mouth these further words of pleading 

faU: 
" Poor moth ! boasting of love, say not thou lov'st at 

all. 
Ah ! how thou moan'st when the fierce heat one wing 

has seared ; 
I stand till my whole form in flame has disappeared." 
And so she talked till morning shone the room about ; 
When lo ! a maiden came to put the candle out : 
It flickered up, — the wick a smoking relic lay. 
'T is thus, O gentle hearts ! that true love dies away. 

THE FOUR WEAPONS. 

The brave man tries his sword, the coward his tongue : 
The old coquette her gold, her face the young. 

THE HIGHEST TRADE. 

Time and Space are outspread as the open Bazaar of 

God's love, 
And who buys nothing there must be wretched all others 

above, 
The great Merchant his wares will for ever keep back 

from our gold : 
For pure throbs of the heart, all his gems, silks, and 

spices are sold. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 281 



SWIFT OPPORTUNITY. 



A thousand years a poor man watched 
Before the gate of Paradise : 
But while one little nap he snatched, 
It oped and shut. Ah ! was he wise ? 

UNSEALING A LETTER. 

The firmament is God's letter of love to man, 
The sun the seal stamped on its envelope of air ; 
The confidential night tears off that blazing seal, 
And lays the solemn star-script, God's handwriting, 
bare. 

FORESIGHT AND DECREE. 

Prophets appear to think they make what they but say : 
Crowed not the cock, still just the same would dawn the 
day! 

THE POET-CRITIC. 

The field a youthful bard and critic enters bold, 
A dauntless hero, in capacity twofold. 
The martyr-crown he seeks from others to deserve, 
And puts it on them when they from his standard 
swerve ! 



282 SPECIMENS OF 

THE MONKEY AND THE COCOA-NUT. 

The cocoa-palm for fifty feet has not a limb : 

It were a task to climb its trunk, so smooth and slim. 

The Western sailors come the weltering ocean o'er, 
And moor their spacious bark hard by the Indian shore. 

But how to reach those lofty nuts shall try their wits. 
At last a cunning thinker thus the problem hits. 

Each man advances near the grove, and there he 

stops. 
A host of monkeys swarm amidst the palms' high 

tops. 

Whatever done by man the mimic monkey sees, 
That he will imitate, perched up amongst the trees. 

Straightway the crew begin to shower the trees with 

stones : 
The monkeys fling back nuts to break their pelters' 

bones. 

The grinning sailors gather up a load of these, 

And stow them in their ship till filled are all its knees. 

These cocoa-nuts shall in the Western world be broke, 
But those outwitted monkeys will not know the joke ! 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 283 

THE TRIAL OF FRIENDSHIP. R. 

Between a wise magician, whom fair Maia knew, 
And one of earth's poor sons, there once a friendship 
grew. 

That friend his ear with protestations plied : 

At length their truth the enchanter by his magic tried. 

Within a meadow sits the friend in mild repose, 
Sees how each flower, each blade of grass, in silence 
grows. 

At once in order rise the grass-blades, and appear 

A host of helmed warriors, armed with pike and spear. 

They throng around the friend, and greet him as a king, 
And pearls and rubies at his feet profusely fling. 

His heart beats strong with bliss : like a vast tent un- 
furled, 
The sky is pitched ; and he is lord of all the world. 

A breathless man then through the crowding courtiers 

pressed, 
And straight the king as a familiar friend addressed. 

The monarch, with a look surprised, to him replied, 
" My friend, I know you not, " and turned away in 
pride. 



284 SPECIMENS OF 

Thrice waved his Maia-staff that grieved magician's 

hand, 
And all the incantation faded from the land. 

The friend, now disenchanted, bitterly repents, 

Till thus the conjuror comforts him for his offence : — 

" It is the world's low lusts that do our senses bind ; 
Let Maia's veil but fall, we leave those snares behind. 

The splendid courtiers shrink to grass-blades in the field, 
The pearls and rubies are but drops of dew congealed. 

Just now my art made shapes to you from out this mist : 
And yet I never would your friendship have dismissed. 

The worst of the illusion was that it turned friend 
From friend, and therefore have I brought it to an end. 

But doubtless, friend! had me the same proud spell 

possessed, 
You would have seen me full as badly stand the test." 



THE PARIAH'S APPEAL. R. 

O Brahmin ! let not your poor outcast child be blamed 
Because he as a wretched Pariah is named. 

My hut is placed afar, that your house may be sure 
Not to become, through smoke from my hearthstone, im- 
pure. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 285 

You turn away whene'er the public road I tread, 
Lest on jour foot should fall the shadow of my head. 

I from a distance, through the open door, behold, 
Amidst the temple's throng, you standing calm and bold. 



Knelt I before the graven god which there I see, 
Would it not turn, as you, its back in scorn on me ? 



Shining through candles, jewel-glow, and rich incense, 
It blesses you ; but curses doth on me dispense. 

Of yonder palm's dropped dates I gathered up a few ; 
xione of its harvest, therefore, will be touched by you. 

Beside the fount I draw from hangs a skull for pail, 
That you to know who there has drank may nowise fail. 

Should one a corpse or ashes in that water place, 
The flowing stream would cleanse itself from every 
trace. 

And yet the pitcher of my child, or his young lip, 
Poisons it all, if there with yours he chance to dip. 

O proud and cruel Brahmin ! from thy visage stern, 
For pity, I to condescending Krishna turn. 



286 SPECIMENS OF ORIENTAL POETRY. 

A SIGNIFICANT PUN. 

Conceit, to gain instruction all too wise, 
Bears pedants, and not pupils, in his eyes. 

EVANESCENCE OF EARTHLY GREATNESS. R. 

A king, who by the public mouth was named the Great, 
Was on his station's frailty wont to meditate. 

Against all arrogance as a protecting gate, 
This phrase he oft repeated : Only God is great. 

Those words he bade them on the palace wall ingrain, 
Whose fragment columns, crumbling, to this day remain. 

City and realm are sunk, but travellers relate 
You still may read that motto : Only God is great. 

THE TRUE TRINITY. 

That Love, the Loved One, and the Lover, 
All three are only One, discover ! 

STRAIT IS THE GATE. 

Rise up betimes, and be awake ! for wise men say, 
That unto knowledge of the Lord to find the way 
Is hard as barefoot o'er a razor's edge to stray ! 



287 



oriental poetry. 

gautama's sisters converted. 

Great Gautama, the sage, two sisters had, 
Who of their beauty were exceeding vain. 

The image of a lovely maid he bade 

Appear to them ; their hearts felt envy's pain. 

Then wrinkles came that maiden's beauty o'er ; 

Her teeth fell out, her hair grew thin and gray. 
No pride nor envy knew the sisters more, 

But for Nirwana they began to pray. 



DISTINCTIONS EVEN IN PANTHEISM. 

The sea is one ; yet who denies that waves, foam, spray, 

drops, froth, 
Do from each other differ, makes each earnest thinker 

wroth. 

SEED AND NURTURE. 

The rain its bounty sheds on every field ; 
The sprouts will vary like the seeds that yield. 

A FAIR HUNTER. 

A hunter is yon maid ; her eyebrows bows appear ; 
Her glances are the arrows, and my heart the deer. 



288 SPECIMENS OF 

THE HYPOCRITICAL FRIEND. 

The friend who, before your face, to flatter disdains not, 
But soon as behind your back, from slander refrains not, 
Is like unto poisoned honey, luscious yet deadly, 
Of pleasure and pain a perilous medley. 

DIVINE DISTILLATION. 

The dropping dew is God dispersed on all things fit ; 
Wilt thou not be a drop among the drops of it ? 

THE RAHAT'S PATH. 

With pride you boast your travels far and wide, 
Your topographic knowledge multiplied. 
I know a road which all your lore exceeds, — 
The blessed road that to Nirwana leads. 

THE INFESTED HEART. 

Within the heart of every man are found a hundred 

swine ; 
Slay these, or the Brahmanic cord arOund your body 

twine. 

THE DIVINE VICTORY. 

He who forbears to take revenge, I know, 
Achieves the noblest conquest of his foe. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 289 

DESCRIPTIVE GENIUS. 

When Amruzail describes what he has seen, 

Such power in his language lies, 
That as he paints flocks, wastes, oases green, 

His hearers' ears are turned to eyes ! 

THE FAITH OF THEISM. 

Deny a living God, from seraph-host to plains of calc, 
And the abyss of Space is but a star-decked catafalque. 

OM MANI PADMI HOOM : BUDDHIST PRATER. 

The flood of time, the storm of life, are cruel ; 

Hail, hail to him with lotus and with jewel ! 

Whose faith and rites, destroying all the fuel 

That feeds the existence-fire, will end the duel 

Between the soul and limitation. Cruel * 

The strife of being with its bounds. But sweeter 

Is Sakya Muni's faith to its repeater 

Than honey to the tongue of famished eater. 

No more he halts, of time and space a meter ; 

Of infinite Nirwana made a greeter, 

His ills all die with speed than lightning fleeter ! 

THE ONE AND THE MANY. 

Of all the world's ten million pools and streams and lakes, 
Each one its image of the single sun-orb takes. 



290 SPECIMENS OF 

So every human soul within the nation-folds, 
Its separate semblance of the single Godhead holds. 
The sun remains, though all the waters flow away : 
When men are gone will solitary Brahma stay. 



THE GOODNESS OF SIVA. 

The firmamental Indra once, in ire, 

Chased Agni, the provoking god of fire. 

Agni assumed a pigeon's shape, and flew. 

How quick did Indra, as a hawk, pursue ! 

The panting fugitive to Siva fled. 

" Fear not, poor trembler ! " gentle Siva said. 

Indra approaches, and demands his prey : — 

" He takes my life who takes my food away." 

" I ne'er betray the guest who trusts my word, 

Although that guest be but a trembling bird. 

Ask any substitute, however rare, 

And you shall not behold me halt or spare." 

" I '11 have my prey, or else thy breast, I swear ! " 

" Be welcome ! " Siva said, and laid it bare. 

The hawk upon the breast took eager flight, 

And fed till he had cloyed his appetite. 

Upon the scene this miracle displays 

The universe became an eye to gaze ; 

And from the drops of Siva's blood that fell 

Redeeming sages sprang, the Shasters tell. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 291 



EGOTISTIC CRITICS. 



Some men a fault in another will find 

As small as a grain of meal ; 
But in themselves, though not otherwise blind, 

Are quite unable to feel 
A fault as large as the cocoa-nut's rind. 



TO A SOCIAL ASPIRANT. 

The struggle after honor leave 
Forever ; turn into thy breast 
That fiery will which now, in strife 
As sent abroad, but runs to waste, — 
And thou shalt lead a noble life, 
Nor longer vainly chafe and grieve. 



DSCHELLALEDD1N RUMY's MATIN-CALL. 

O arise ! for to us is belonging all nature to-day, 

And the Soul of the World comes alike as our host 
and our guest ; 
While the lutes of the stars through the morning en- 
trancingly play, 
And with roses is drunken the nightingale soul in 
my breast. 



292 SPECIMENS OP 

DSCHAMY RECEIVING A LETTER. 

In the East the bright falcon of morning upflew ; 
From the rose-bsd of luck a soft atmosphere blew ; 
By the post of good fate came thy missive to me, 
That the prayers of thy soul their fulfilment might see. 
Then, as swiftly I tore the envelope apart, 
A sweet perfume embathing my flesh and my heart, 
For the pearl of the meaning therefrom to be learned, 
To the letter my mind as a muscle I turned. 

A SUBLIME HEEDLESSNESS. 

The real saint, absorbed in what he loves and knows, 
Forgets alike caresses, spurns, and gifts, and blows ; 
The lover of the Lord, when blessed to see His face, 
The dealings of His hand will never care to trace. 

TURNING FROM TALE-BEARERS. 

Withdraw your mind, however hard the task, 
When gossips put their friends upon the rack ; 

In magnanimity refrain to ask 

What any one has said behind your back. 

For only that which to your hearing comes 

Can vex your soul with anger, pain, and dread ; 

Whate'er beyond your hearing dies or hums, 
Is just as though it never had been said. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 293 

SHARP-SIGHTEDNESS OF THE ARAB HORSE. 

The lion and the horse one day disputed which 
Of them possessed the most discriminating sight. 
A hair all white in milk the lion saw by night ; 

The horse by night perceived a sable hair in pitch. 

SWIFTNESS OF THE ARAB HORSE. 

Mahlek Ben Essedin sings, 
Horses are birds without wings. 

LIGHT-FOOTEDNESS OF THE ARAB HORSE. 

Haymour, the peerless chestnut steed 
Of Hussein, Sheik of El Medeen, 
Was said to be so light of foot, 
That on a woman's bosom he 
Could dance, nor leave a bruise behind. 

REWARD IS HUMAN : FROM LEB1D. 

Reward with good the good one does to thee, the least ; 
For it is only man rewards, and not the beast. 

EVANESCENCE OF MORTAL THINGS. 

O imperial Babylon ! where is the pulp of thy rind ? 
And the throne of great Solomon where ? They are 
gone on the wind : 



294 SPECIMENS OF 

In the lore of the past though a million bright deeds 

are enshrined, 
Many more, brighter far, have evanished like mist on 

the wind. 
What are glory and riches ? But firmans that Fortune 

hath signed, 
Just to glitter a moment, and pass on the breath of the 

wind. 
Hast been chained ? or by love hast been crossed ? or 

in sorrow hast pined ? 
Ah ! how glad thou shalt be when thy relics are dust 

on the wind. 
For the spirit in death all its burdens and bounds leaves 

behind, 
And will nevermore care for the things that must go 

on the wind. 

THE MAGNANIMOUS FRIEND. 

Even if, when in my need, for help I sought, 
My friend to me assistance never brought, 
When cries that friend for help in his sore need, 
Forgetting every grudge, to him I speed. 

A LOFTY RESERVE : FROM MOTANEBBI. 

Complain not to the crowd ; you will but give them 

joy, I say ; — 
As if a wounded deer complained unto the birds of prey. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 295 

THE PROPHETIC BEGINNING. 

The gray morning, I see, in the night of thy beard has 

just broken. 
He replied, with a sigh, soon as thus I had smilingly 

spoken : 
Was there ever a dawn that did not the full noonday 

betoken ? 

LOVE SOWING AND REAPING ROSES. 

An Arab, by his earnest gaze, 

Has clothed a lovely maid with blushes ; 

A smile within his eyelids plays, 
And into words his longing gushes. 

The loving looks my heart out-throws 
Upon your cheeks have planted roses. 

O, let me pluck ! That he who sows 
Should reap, there is no law opposes. 

THE DIVINE INTEGER. 

Not an object can be, but the same has existed before, 
Leaping up in the light, falling back in the dark, of 
its source ; 
Awful space is of God but the azure and echoless floor, 
Where sufficingly dwells He, an absolute unit of 
force. 



296 SPECIMENS OF 

Thus, no matter how varied, all things are but sports 

of the One, 
From this mystical thought in my mind, to yon bubble, 

the Sun ; 
What appears is a shimmer of spirit on matter's dim 

screen, 
As I long ago learned to perceive from great Dschella- 

leddin. 

THE LAST PERCH OF DELIGHT. 

For eons that no number can compute, 

All drunk and wild with ecstasy of bliss, 
The rahat in a dazzling spiral flew, 

And still the apex of perfection neared. 
But in that endless flight, the sum of joy 

Across his vision and his senses poured, 
Were nothing to the rapture which he knew 

The solitary instant when he stood 
Upon Nirwdna's edge, and took the leap 

Which left poor Limitation's marks behind, 
And made him absolute and total All. 

THE RUINED HOUSE. 

When Otbah saw the home of Bani Jash 
Deserted by its inmates, once so gay, 

Now still, — the fallen door and broken sash, — 
He sighed : Alas ! no house on earthly clay 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 297 

Is built, — however fair and strong its walls, 
However love and peace its chambers fill, — 

But at the last a fatal message calls, 

A mournful wind complains across its sill ! 



AN ARABIC RIDDLE. 

The first and last are just alike, upon my soul ; 

But — who my riddle reads ? — the middle is the whole. 

/ uoout jmi ptre <pp 'ao^j 
•uoos os '^i p^aj j 

THE FRIEND IN PROOF. 

Name not as friends the men who by you stand 

In pleasant times, when peace and welfare please you ; 

But him indeed call friend who grasps your hand 
In that dark day when want and danger seize you. 



THE DYED SOUL. 

O thou in beauty's wild enchantment dressed, 

My soul has, like the tulip, been in blood immersed, 
And will, if here by thy rejecting scorn accursed, 

Bear to the future world the marks thou hast impressed. 



298 SPECIMENS OP 



TRUE NOBILITY. 



Who nobly lives and dies I noble call, 
Although the most ignobly born of all. 

A NEW MAN. 

Leave ancestry behind, 

Despise heraldic art ; 
Thy father be thy mind, 

Thy mother be thy heart. 

Dead names concern not thee, 

Bid foreign titles wait ; 
Thy deeds thy pedigree, 

Thy hopes thy rich estate ! 

EXCLUSION OF DEITY. 

God must in all creation be. 

Vile wretch, say not He is in thee ! 

BEAUTY THE SPRINGE OP HEAVEN. 

Wherever, Zuleika, thou comest, breaks the night into 
day; 
Enslaved by thy form I have gone through the world 
with my lute ; 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 299 

The charm of thy ringlets would lead even the Devil 



The cherubim gaze on thy face in astonishment mute. 
When love unto full contemplation thy beauty unfurled, 
There stood the sweet Springe into which flew at once 
the whole world. 



THE CIRCUMSPECT TRAVELLER. 

And well I judge, 

As forward I trudge, 
'T is best for each pilgrim chap 

To be cautious very ; 

For I have heard 

That the flying bird 
Has oft come into the trap 

For a luring berry. 

timour's statesmanship. 

Timour, the Tartar, said : An empire is a tent ; 
Justice should be the pole around which it is bent, 
Sure promptitude of equity its girding rope, 
And its two fastening-pins philanthropy and hope. 
Then it protection o'er its tenants long shall throw, 
However loud and fierce the blasts of trial blow. 






300 SPECIMENS OF 

THE INFINITE DWELLER. 

From the pitiful form of a flea, to the person of Rama, 
All the bodies of beings are mystical cities of Brahma ; 
In what tissues organic walled up, an intuitive token 
Still incessantly pines for the time when these jails 
shall be broken. 

FORBEARANCE IS POLITIC. 

Never rejoice at death of foe, my friend ; 
Your own life too is hurrying towards its end. 

THE PREACHING OF TOMBS. 

As Adi, with the youthful prince, Noman, 

His pupil, strolled one day where slowly ran 

A river past a cemetery gray, 

He asked, Knowest what yon silent tenants say ? 

This is the speech their mouths of ruin hold, 

The gist of a thousand songs and proverbs old : 

" Ye toiling caravans, who travel by, 

Like you, we lived ; and you, like us, shall die ! 

What throngs have made their camels here recline 

Before our doors, and i% their halt quaffed wine 

Mixed with this stream ! The morning passed away, 

And, lo ! they had become of time the prey, 

And disappeared in its mutations strange ; 

For Time itself is only change on change ! " 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 301 

AN OMNIPRESENT GOAL IS PATHLESS. 

Whatever bears a sign, thou, Lord, must be ; 
But no sign bears the way that leads to thee. 

THE COW-BOY OF GOPALA : PREM SAGAR. 

When Krishna, as a cowherd boy, 
Among the cowherd maidens strayed, 

With magic decked, full-wreathed with joy, 
All in Gopala's pleasant meads, — 

Such heavenly charms around him played, 

So wondrous were his countless deeds, 

That in him Brahma, doubting, thought 

An avatar of Vishnu wrought. 

At once the surmise he would test, 

The doubt confirm, or lay at rest. 

While Krishna on a crumpled heap 

Of breathing roses lies asleep, 

The herd of cattle Brahma steals, 

With every tending lass and lad, 

And bears them through the traceless sky. 

The youthful cowherd quickly feels 

A warning sign of something bad, 

Starts up, and seeks the reason why. 

The sacred cows, his playmates too, 

Are gone. He calls aloud. In vain ! 

Where'er he looks, the grassy plain 



<°>02 SPECIMENS OF 

Is all that meets his anxious view. 
At length he sees what has been done, 
And, searching for some fit relief, 
His ruminating mind employs ; 
For he foresees the boundless grief 
That will throughout Gopala run, 
Thus reft of cows, of girls and boys. 
Before his mind kneel all the fates ; 
His countenance no more is sad. 
By one volition he creates 
As many a charming lass and lad, 
Just such a herd of grazing kine, 
Exactly stamped with every sign, 
As those that came there in the morn ; 
They were identical in each 
Particular of form and speech, 
And all events since they were born. 
Just like the missing cows, the new 
Entered their stalls with easy air, 
As though they had been wonted there ; 
The boys and girls their parents knew, 
And every reminiscence shared. 
So Brahma's mischief was repaired, 
And solaced those he did bereave. 
But when the sacred milk they quaffed, 
"We may be sure that in his sleeve 
The lovely, cunning cow-boy laughed. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 303 

BRAHMANIC MATINS. 

Valmiki early in the morning rose, 

And, girding on his hermit garb of bark, 

Repaired to where the smooth Taraasa flows, 
As tints of dawn began the clouds to mark. 

His dress laid off, he bathes himself with care, 

Repeating softly many a Veda prayer. 

He scoops the wave, slow pours it on the sods, 

In memory of his ancestors and gods ; 

Then takes with pure and cheerful mind his way 

To enter on the duties of the day. 

THE PROLONGERS OF TIME. 

Sorrow, suspense, desire, and fear, — 
These four can make a day appear 
Long as the shadow of a spear. 

BIRTH OF THE SLOKA ; OR, ORIGIN OF TERSE. 

When all the matter of his Epic lay in sage Valmiki's 

mind, 
But in what form of prose or verse to clothe it he had 

not defined, 
He wandered on the banks of fair Tamasa, musing deep 

and long, 
Seeking to choose the form and measure best for his 

immortal song. 



301 SPECIMENS OF 

While thus employed, he saw, perched near him on a 
fragrant spray, 

A lovely pair of golden birds, who sang and wooed in 
guiltless play. 

Just then a reckless archer came beneath, took careful 
aim above, 

And murdered one exactly when he was inebriate with 
love. 

His mate beholds him fall, all drenched with blood, and 
swiftly round him flies, 

Giving a vent to her distress in rhythmical and plain- 
tive cries. 

Valmiki, deeply moved with sympathy, impulsively ex- 
claims, 

While sorrow dews his eyes, and righteous anger through 
his bosom flames : 

" O wretch, my curse on thee ! for of these warblers, 
brighter than the sun, 

While all inebriate with love, thy cruel hand hath 
slaughtered one." 

His tender voice his pulse divided as the mourning 
songstress wailed, 

And in the rhythmic line it formed, the wished discov- 
ery he hailed. 

That line, as born of grief, let all men by the name of 
Sloka know ; 

Thus formed, Ramayana shall live while mountains 
stand and rivers flow. 






ORIENTAL POETRY. 305 

IDEAL GENEROSITY. 

Among generous kings was Ularka the chief 

That e'er sat on a throne. Once, his virtue to try, 
Mighty Indra came down, for a period brief, 

In a mendicant's form, with a pitiful cry ; 
In appearance as poor as a shrivelled-up leaf. 
At the feet of Ularka he stretched out his palms, 

And looked up at the king with a suppliant eye. 

To this silent request made the monarch reply : 
"Ask whatever thou wilt, thou shalt have it as 
alms." 

Then at once did the beggar, exclaiming, arise : 
" O Ularka, the gift that I ask is thine eyes ! " 
But an instant the king hesitatingly sat, 

Then outplucked the bright orbs, and, with hands 
that dim groped, 
The two jewels resplendent he laid on the mat 

At the feet of the god ; who his Deity oped 
In a sunburst of smiles, and applauded the king. 

And a sardonyx chair, dropping down from above, 
Took them in, and returningly flew without wing, 
While both men and the gods made the universe ring 

With their shouts, and the air was all loaded with 
love ! 



306 SPECIMENS OF 



THE SAINT CONQUERING SATAN. 

The World so darkly lies, 
The fowler, Mara, few can see. 

Before his nets surprise, 
Be warned, poor bird, betimes by me ! 

As yon flamingo sails 
Through sunny paths serenely on 

Till straining eyesight fails 
To follow whither it has gone ; 

So through the ether flies 
The sage, with magic strength endued, 

Nirwana for his prize, 
The World and Mara all subdued. 

BEWARE OF DELAY. 

Fair opportunities are swift to go ; 

But in returning they are, ah, how slow ! 

THE END OF A KALPA. 

The earth dissolves, the stars grow dark, the sun ex- 
pires ; 
An ashy hue comes o'er the sky ; all spirits fade ; 
Retreat chaotic glooms and cosmogonic fires, 

Absorbing boundlessness claims all that has been 
made. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 307 

The elements reseek their transcendental deep, — 
The kalpa ends, great Brahma is about to sleep. 

CONTENTED DISCONTENT. 

When sinful pleasure lapped me in her honeyed state, 
My spirit was uneasy and disconsolate ; 
But thrills of deep contentment through my bosom went 
As often as I felt my utter discontent. 

THE BLESSED ISLE. 

To calm and cleanse, and make thy heart thine own, 
' By prayer and lofty musing strain its blood 

From restless self-desires. Whoe'er does this, 
Not led and fed by hopes of heaven alone, 

Amidst the rage of Time's destroying flood 

Uprears himself a stable isle of bliss. 

NO TEDIUM IN ETERNITY. 

To the watcher the night seemeth long, 
To the pilgrim each parasang long ; 
But, O, longer by far seemeth time 
To him who hath nothing but time ! 



308 SPECIMENS OP 



ABOU EL MAHR AND HIS HORSE. 

It is Abou el Mahr, the gallant Sheik of Al Azeed ; 
How fondly he is stroking Lahla, his unrivalled steed ! 

Among the hills of Schem the tents of Al Azeed are 

pitched, 
And close by every warrior's door the favorite horse is 

hitched. 

For valor none can stand the men of Al Azeed beside ; 
And Houri only with their maids comparison can bide. 

This tribe the unchallenged banner too throughout 

Arabia bears, 
For the wondrous strength and beauty of their stallions 

and their mares. 

But first among their warriors stands the Sheik, Abou 

el Mahr, 
And conscious Lahla shines among their steeds, the 

peerless star. 

When clasps Abou proud Lahla's neck to kiss his 

veined cheek, 
The courser looks his love as plainly as if he could 

speak. 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 309 

He waves his mane, he paws, he curls his nostrils and 

his lips ; 
He makes half-vocal sounds, uprears or droops his neck 

and hips ; 

His deep and pensive eyes light up with lambent flame, 

then seem 
As if they swam in the desires of some mysterious dream. 

And thus his mind — in signs through changing nerves 

and muscles wrought, 
Of paleness, flush, and gesture — has a language for 

each thought. 

Abou caresses him before the people gathered there, 
"Who gaze with wonder at his loving and his haughty 
air. 

And Leila, Selim, Zar — the wife and children of the 

Sheik — 
Will pat and kiss him, and his hoof within their bosoms 

take. 

And twenty chiefs press near, their servants ranged in 

ordered bands, 
The privilege to claim that he shall eat from out their 

hands. 

For Labia is of Al Azeed the crowning joy and pride ; 
The envy and despair of all the Arab tribes beside. 



310 SPECIMENS OF 

Another horse so celebrated never spurned the earth ; 
Through white Koureen, the mare of Solomon, he 
draws Ms birth ; 

And traces back, in straight, untainted rill, his royal blood 
To thrice illustrious Hufafa, great Abraham's sable stud. 

Hang o'er his spotless forehead, which is white as 

whitest milk, 
Soft tufts of handsome hair as glossy as the finest silk. 

Those tufts compose a veil which every breeze in open- 
work hems, 

And underneath it glimpse his rapid eyes, two burning 
gems. 

His neck and chest the graces of a swan's in nothing lack ; 
A gorgeous mantle, woven of silk and gold, beclothes 
his back. 

His pedigree, two hundred high descents, his bosom bears 
In bag of musk, wherewith two precious amulets he wears. 

His limbs and sockets so elastic, all his motions are 
So swift and smooth, the rider scarcely feels a start or jar. 

Abou el Mahr would on his back, in rapid gallop still, 
A brimming cup of sherbet quaff, and not a droplet spill. 



Indeed, a bard so mounted might receive the fancy bold, 
courser was 
ment hold. 



His courser was a bird whose wings an unseen move- 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 311 

L"o price or bribe could cause the Sheik, nor any des- 
perate need, 
To part with his redoubtable and idolized steed. 

It is Abou el Mahr, with twelve choice men of Al Azeed; 
And they to seize the hostile Bagdad caravan proceed. 

Soon through the Synor pass into the open plain they 

wind, 
And shake their spears, and shout, their blue caftans 

stream wide behind. 

Abou, his Lahla's sinews strung with fire, is far before. 
As on the undefended, scattering caravan they pour. 

To guard their goods two merchants of Damascus 

bravely stand, 
But in an instant both are stretched in death upon the 

sand. 

The Sheik and his good men of Al Azeed pile all the spoil 
Upon the camels, and their homeward way begin to toil. 

At noon they halt to rest awhile beside a desert spring ; 
Ah ! who can tell what utter ruin one thoughtless hour 
may bring ? 

Their foe, the fierce Pacha of Acre, leads his horsemen 

there, 
Cries, " Strike ! and I command you, save Abou, not 

one to spare ! " 



312 SPECIMENS OF 

So all are slain. The Sheik, in his right arm a fearful 

wound, 
His darling Lahla led before, is on a camel bound. 

They journey on until they reach the mountains of 

Saphad, 
Just as the sun drops out of sight, and night falls dark 

and sad. 

The old Pacha commands each soldier there to pitch 

his tent, 
And take good care the escape of horse or camel to 

prevent. 

The keeper of the Sheik has tied him fast both hand 

and foot, 
And fallen asleep, and dreams of fighting, routing, and 

pursuit. 

But the poor captive, restless with his torturing wound, 

still wakes, 
And Lahla's low, disconsolate neigh his anguish sharper 

make3. 

Bound as he is, he rolls and crawls one last caress to give 
The steed from whom he had not thought to part while 
he should live. 

" Lahla ! " sighs Abou, " no more shall I rejoice with 

thee 
To skim the waste, the wild Simoom not prouder or 

more free ; 



ORIENTAL POETRY. 313 

" No more with thee the Jordan swim, whose spurned 

water drips 
From off thy sides, as white and pure as foam from off 

thy lips. 

" A bitter fate consigns me to my unrelenting foe ; 
But thou, bright gem of Al Azeed, in liberty shalt go. 

" What wouldst thou do, poor friend, shut in the close 

and wretched khan 
Of some Turk huckster not deserving to be called a man ? 

" No, whether fortune dooms me for a slave or here to die, 
Thou shalt, O jewel of a thousand hearts, in freedom fly. 

" Go to the tents thou knowest so well, amid the hills 

of Schem, V 
And say, Abou el Mahr will nevermore return to them. 

" Thy head put through the door where my dear wife 

and children are, 
And lick the hands of Leila, Selim, and sweet little Zar. 

" O Lahla, Lahla ! must I now from thee forever part ! 
Farewell, farewell, beloved comrade of my life and 
heart ! " 

So saying, with his teeth laboriously he gnawed apart 
The tethering cord that went around the stake, and 
bade him start ! 



314 SPECIMENS OP 

But the sagacious soul bounds not away. The bonds 

he smells 
That bind his master's limbs. Each fact to him its 

secret tells. 

With tenderness he licks the blood upon the shattered 

arm, 
Gives forth a low and painful whine, but raises no alarm. 

His teeth the girdle seize ; he lifts Abou, so spare and 

tall; 
Now foolish guards, now old Pacha, defiance to you all ! 

Great Lahla proves himself a steed of living steel and 

fire; 
To reach him vain are all the struggles of their mad 

desire. 

For the hills of Schem he aims his way through the 

open, lustrous night, 
Straight as an arrow goes, swift as the lightning in its 

flight. 

The stars one after one go down behind the desert's rim, 
But the pale and eager moon rushes in even pace with 
him. 

The palm-clumps on oases lift their heads of yellow green 
Above the downs of endless sand, and vanish soon as 
seen. 






ORIENTAL POETRY. 315 

The lagging sun comes up ; twelve weary, mighty 

leagues are passed ; 
The lovely haunts and tents of Al Azeed appear at last. 

The anxious tribe, whose thirteen best are out, is all astir ; 
The mother deems it time her sons should have returned 
to her. 

Ha ! what upon the far horizon moves ? A single steed ? 
Is this what we looked for with such intensity of greed ? 

Nearer ! can it be Lahla ? In his mouth a bundle ? No, 
The matchless Lahla never from adventure came so slow. 

The godlike steed, with staggering steps, faint pantings, 

almost spent, 
The girdle bites, reels up, and lays Abou before his tent. 

One instant stands he, looking round, as if reward to reap 
From those who, thrilled with grateful love and won- 
der, gaze and weep. 

Then, while the congregated tribe break forth in pier- 
cing cries, 

The noble creature, gasping, falls, all blood and foam, 
and dies. 

Thabit Ben AH, poet of the tribe, leaps through the 

crowd, 
With soul on fire, and sings the feat in panegyric proud. 



316 SPECIMENS OP ORIENTAL POETRY. 

To thrilling tones of love and pride he smites his burn- 
ing lyre ; 
With raining eyes and heaving bosoms all as one respire. 

" No man" he says, " not even Hatim Tai, could have 

done 
A nobler deed, a more impassioned gratitude have won. 

" Long as the Horse shall be the friend and servant of 

our race, 
The glorious fame of Lahla shall resound through time 

and space." 

Full many a day has passed since Ali sang his touching 
song, 

And from the vale the tents of Al Azeed have van- 
ished long ; 

But in the night of Arab lore still shineth, like a star, 
The story of the peerless Lahla and Abou el Mahr. 



POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL, 



DEBENT ET PRODESSE ET DELECTAEE TOBTM. 

It is the poet's happy duty, 

Whose breast his singing eases, 

In joint behoof of truth and beauty, 
To profit while he pleases. 

THE RIDE OF LIFE. 

Each day you have is but a steed, 

Caparisoned or well or ill ; 
The weeks, the fresh relays you need ; 

Your soul, the mystic rider still. 
The spurs and stirrups are of deed, 

The sightless bridle is of will ; 
While faring forth you smile or bleed, 

Take care, with heed the saddle fill ! 



318 POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 

THE SCHOOL OF LIFE. 

While through the halls in the school of life we flit, 
With hearts still turned where thou, O God ! dost 
lead them, 

Be all thy ceaseless benefits deep writ 

Where every day we turn the leaves to read them. 

THE FOOL OF FOOLS. 

Soon as himself man knows> 

He knows himself a fool ; 
Yet, ah ! how mad he grows 

If one but call him fool ! 

A MOOD. 

O the burden of the dreams that have long been dead, 
And the brightness of the hopes to my soul that clung ! 

O the sadness of the tears that never were shed, 

And the sweetness of the songs that never were sung ! 

There is nothing a man knows, in grief or in sin, 

Half so bitter as to think, What I might have been! 

THE DOUBLE HARVEST. 

A dying girl, in autumn time, 

Lay fading "at the close of day, — 

Stole o'er the fields the reapers' chime, 
While fast around the brown ranks lay. 



POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 310 

u Open the casement wide," she said, 
" And raise me up, that I may look, 

Ere yet my heart and eyes are dead, 
Once more upon the field and brook ! " 

" The harvest is the Lord's," loud sang 

The reapers in the distant field ; 
With piled-up sheaves, with sickles' clang, 

To him they all the glory yield. 

Abroad the dying maiden gazed, 

Then all around grew sudden black ; 

The sun in setting dimly blazed, — 
Her head upon the couch fell back. 

" Farewell ! " she sighed, " ye scenes so dear." 
" The harvest is the Lord's," replied, 

Unconsciously, the reapers clear ; 
And ere the distant echo died, 

An angel-reaper darted there, 

Too swift for mortal sight to spy, 

And bore the flower that drooped so fair 
To God's great garner in the sky. 

VOCAL PHANTOMS AND REAL EXPERIENCE. 

Amidst a parlor-full of strangers 
He sits within his easy-chair, 



320 POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 

Without a thought of lurking dangers, 

And asks his auditors to share 
The secrets which themselves but dare 
To face in solitude and prayer. 

To themes so shy and private listen, 

With prim propriety, the crowd ; 
No eyes with softening radiance glisten, 

No quickening hearts beat time aloud ; 
Depressed sit those with love endowed, 
Complacent stare the cold and proud. 

Ah ! thou who so remotely talkest 
Of friendship's sentimental stake, 

With words at one remove thou balkest 
The wants with which our bosoms ache. 

Set forth the facts, — this throng would wake, 

Their eyes would gush, their hearts would break I 



AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. 

My way in opening dawn I took, 
Between the hills, beside a brook. 
The peaks one sun was climbing o'er, 
The dew-drops showed ten millions more. 

The mountain valley is a vase 

Which God has brimmed with rarest grace 



POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 321 

And kneeling in the taintless air, 
I drink celestial blessings there. 

Behold that guiltless bird ! What brings 
Him here ? He comes to wash his wings. 
Let me too wash my wings with prayer, 
And cleanse them from foul dust and care. 

To one long time in city pent 
The lesson seems from heaven sent. 
For pinions clean yon bird takes care ; 
Of soul defiled do thou beware ! 

FUNERAL HYMN. 

The worlds that shine above us nightly, 

Then hide beyond our clew, 
Do surely shine all day as brightly 

Behind their veil of blue. 

When friends with natural misgiving 

We lay in earth's cold bed, 
We know that thus they still are living 

Where comes no sigh nor dread. 

O while our saddest tears are stealing, 

When fate's worst dart has sped, 
'T is light, not darkness, is concealing 

Our well-beloved dead. 



322 POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 

Whene'er a funeral bell is tolling, 
Some weary one doth rest ; 

And loudly through the skies are rolling 
The anthems of the blest. 

Then wherefore should we sink in sorrow 
To part from those we love ? 

Since God will join us all to-morrow, 
In the endless home above. 



EPITAPH ON TIMON, THE MISANTHROPE : CALLIMACHUS. 

Timon, hat'st thou the world or Hades worse ? Speak 

clear. 
" Hades, fool ! because there are more of us here ! " 

THE PATHOS OF LIFE : GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 

The race of man is like a summer breeze that transient 

blows, — 
A stranger to himself, in all his life he nothing knows. 

THE POOR MAN'S COMFORT : GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 

Thou scorn'st not me, but poverty in me as realized ; 
And God himself, if on the earth, and poor, would be 
despised. 






POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 323 

THE MISER'S MISERY : GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 

Hermon, the miser, dreamed he was in debt, and poor ; 
Waking, he quickly hung himself above the door ! 

CAUSE AND EFFECT : GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 

Thy mind is lame as is thy foot ; for nature still doth 

make 
What is without from that which is within its being take. 

DISSIPATION AND ITS PROGENY : GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 

Limb-loosing Bacchus and limb-loosing Venus, without 
doubt, 

A horrid daughter sometimes get, — the fierce, limb- 
loosing Gout. 

VULCAN COMPENSATED : GREEK ANTHOLOGY. 

Fair Eros for thy son, sweet Aphrodite for thy wife ; 
Brass-worker, it is just thou take thy lameness without 
strife. 

CYNIC AND PLATONIST. 

Diogenes once cried, 
" See how I tread on Plato's pride ! " 
u Yes, with far greater pride ! " 
The wise philosopher replied. 



324 POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 
THE RETORT RETORTED. 

Pyrrho was wont to say, 

" There 's no distinction bred 

Between who lives to-day 
And who to-day is dead." 

" Why hast thou not then died ? " 
Asked one, to show his sense. 

" Because," Pyrrho replied, 
" There is no difference ! " 

EINDRUCK UND AUSDRUCK : RUCKERT. 

Let something make the right impression on your mind, 
And for it soon the right expression you will find ; 
So, too, let something but the right expression take, 
And it will very soon the right impression make. 

FROM THE GERMAN OF FEUERBACH, THE SATIRIST. 
I. USE OF SATIRE. 

Enlarging, but not altering, Satire lays all bare ; 
Aye, like a microscope, it shows things as they are. 

II. PINAL CAUSE OF THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT. 

Dost know the reason why the apple Adam bit ? 
To do a favor to Theology was it. 



POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 325 

III. THE WISE ASCETIC. 

Flowers are for heaven ; and though they bloom on 

earth, 't is true, 
Let us not look, but still for heaven reserve the view. 

IV. THE NOBLE ECONOMIST. 

What good are tulips and roses profuse ? 
Potatoes let us raise ; they are of use ! 

V. THE HOLT EMBARGO. 

The priests will have no precious product landed, 
Unless the crucifix is on it branded. 

VI. INSPIRATION NOT LOCALLY LIMITED. 

Appears but to a bigoted and foolish elf 
The Palestinian Flora as Botania's self. 

VII. SIGH OP A LAYMAN. 

The Holy Ghost but Greek and Hebrew knew ; 
Alas for us, illiterate laic crew ! 

VIII. SIGH OP A THEOLOGIAN. 

Alas ! the Holy Ghost but drizzles drop by drop, 
When a great stream should burst the pen our thirst to 
stop. 



326 POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 
IX. THE TWO SHADOWS. 

Behind the thing the shadow doth in nature stretch ; 
Before the thing the shadow doth in history reach. 

X. THE WORLD EMPIRICALLY TREATED. 

All sickness is specific, Science doth assure, 

And only special means its ails can really cure. 

To lack of Bibles do the Bible-Unions tax 

The world's diseases all. Get out, you arrant quacks ! 

XI. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGIN OF MYSTICISM. 

Unnatural warmth the heart's rich chamber filled, 
But cold as Greenland stood the empty head ; 

Through reason's coldness feeling's mist distilled, 
And dimmed the windows which to nature led. 

The vapor, gathered thus, in ice-flowers froze ; — 

And from that vision mysticism rose. 

INCLUSION ABOVE NEGATION. 

The wise critic his power in help displays, 
And not in hurt ; as when great Goethe says, 
" Divide and conquer ! is a maxim fit ; 
" Unite and lead ! is a much finer wit." 

TO A LAZY GLUTTON : LESSING. 

In eating you are swift ; in going, slow ; — 
Eat with your feet, and take your jaws to go ! 



POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 327 



THE PATHETIC CONTRADICTION : ANASTASIUS GRUN. 

When on her bashful mouth I hung, 
And wildly drew her fragrant breath, 

My dreams, why only, only clung 
They still to parting and to death ? 

And now, as sadly on the grave 

I stand, where she lies cold and dead, 

Why do I taste the kiss she gave, 
And see her modest cheeks so red ? 



THE MINSTREL S BREVITY : HOLDERLIN. 

Why art thou all so brief? Lov'st thou no more* the 
song ? 
When once thy lay was heard in days of youth and 
Spring, 
It seemed as if the strain could never be too long ; 
But now the close is nigh whenever thou wilt sing. 



My song is as my life. Wouldst bathe thyself in light ? 
Behold, 
The darkness settling round with mournful omen 
stirs ; 
The sunset faded out, the earth is growing cold, 
And close in front the bird of night uneasy whirrs. 



328 POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 

FROM THE RUSSIAN POET, LERMONTOFF. 

Rememberest thou the day when we — 

Late was the hour — were forced to part ? 
The night-gun boomed athwart the sea ; 

In painful silence beat each heart ; 
The lovely day found cloudy close ; 

A heavy mist the landscape palled ; 
And seemed it, when that shot arose, 

An echo from the ocean called. 

Alone I wander by the flood ; 

And when a gun booms in its might, 
I think with pain how we once stood 

Together on that parting night 
And as the mournful echoes roll, 

Muffled, along the fluid walls, 
From out the caverns of my soul 

Death answeringly calls and calls. 

POEMS FROM THE GERMAN OF NICOLATJS LENAU. 
I. MOTTO TO LENATj's LIFE. 

A fading gleam, a dying crash, 

Is human life, perceived and gone. 
Whence comes the noise ? Where goes the flash ? 

The stars are dumb ; the waves roar on. 



POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 329 

II. PRATER TO LETHE. 

O Lethe ! break the fetters of thy shore, 
And from the shadow-world upon me pour, 
And let my restless spirit, wounded sore, 

Thy wave of healing drink ! 

Spring comes, with fragrance, song, and love awake, 
And greets me as of old ; a heavy ache 
Lets not my heart respond. O Lethe, make 

Thy wave within me sink ! 

III. THE PAST. 

The evening star, a pallid spark, 

Sadly shines and winks afar ; 
Again a Day has changed to dark, 

And found the rest that naught can mar. 

Upon the moonlight, soft and clear, 

Yon airy cloudlets float away, 

And out of roses pale appear 

To weave a crown for the dead Day. 
r 

Dim tomb of precious times gone by, 

Inexorably holding Past ! 
In thee, asleep, my heart's pains lie ; 

Alas ! its raptures too thou hast ! 



300 POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 



IV. TRUTH AND HYPOCRISY. 

Grief smote her by surprise 
Amidst the giddy play ; 

Tears, raining from her eyes, 
Washed all the rouge away. 

Grief ! thou art most true ; 

Thou mak'st disguises known 
False paint is trickled through, 

The faded cheeks are shown I 



V. VANITY IS WRETCHED. 

A heart that humble love and toil surround, 
Is happy ; but a heart on haughty ways, 

That with great wishes goes, with woe is crowned, 
And languishes beneath its envied bays. 

VI. SHE CAME AND WENT. 

Whene'er she came, her form before me stood 
As lovely as the first green in the wood. 

And what she said sank in my heart as sweet 
As Spring's first song heard in the grove's retreat. 

And when she waved me with her hand farewell, 
My latest dream of youth in fragments fell. 



POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 331 



VII. MY HEART. 

A sleepless night ; the rain pours fast ; 

My wakeful heart, between the flurries, 
Now harks where silent goes the past, 

Now where the threatening future hurries. 

O heart, thy listening must be bad ; 

Seek what enduring Will resembles ; 
Behind are heard complainings sad, 

And forward many a question trembles. 

Whate'er the danger, never shrink ; 

The storm itself thy trust discloses ; 
The boat with Christ no storm could sink ; 

So in thy bosom God reposes. 

VIII. THE WINTER CRUCIFIX. 

Stripped of its Christ, a naked cross I see 
Upon the cliff ; as though the winter storm 

Which, roaring, tears the leaves from every tree, 
Had also torn from that the God-man's form. 

Shall I therefore the horror, widely strown, 
Collect, and to a single image mix ? 

Shall I dead Nature, clad in snow alone, 
Nail there on yonder empty crucifix ? 



332 POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 

IX. DEPARTURE OP ILLUSION. 

Above each joy of life I see 

A threatening vulture, sight of dread ! 
What I have loved, or sought to be, 

It all is either lost or dead. 

In Nature's gloomy council dares 
The human heart no voice to bring ; 

Soon Death, remorseless vulture, tears 
The joys that o'er our pathway wing. 

I will not longer, fool-like, seize 

The foam that bright on darkness lies, 

But with such bitter tears as these 

Wash the last dream from out mine eyes. 

X. TO AN AUTOGRAPH COLLECTOR. 

The watchful hunter, skilled in tracks, 
Can tell, from traces on the snow, 

As if they were portrayed in wax, 
The feet of stag or wolf or roe. 

To him each foot-script thus displayed 
Upon the ground, before his eyes, 

Doth, through the shape its movement made, 
Betray the "writer's age and size. 

So, from the print its track has formed, 
To his perception it is clear 



POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 333 

Whether across the meadow stormed 
A fawn, or sixteen-antlered deer. 

The tracks of my shy soul dost think, 

Lover of autographs, O say, 
To follow through this lineal ink, 

As creeps the hunter to his prey ? 

XI. THE DILEMMA. 

Before thee a Dilemma he proposes ; 

With such a logic-fork will he transfix me ? 
Between its arms, he says, the truth it closes. 

Dost doubt ? Then flee, ere on its points he sticks thee. 

Suggests the two-prong of his technic sermons, 
The journey of an ancient king recited. 

In peasant's cart he fared among his Germans, 
And as the way was long, he got benighted. 

The wagon, used to loads of hay, moves slowly ; 

The peasant lets the oxen trudge at leisure. 
The night is fair ; and through the soul, made holy, 

Glides many a picture of idyllic pleasure. 

Behold, the moon's high horn serenely beaming ! 

The sluggish team between their horns have caught it. 
So he shall find the truth in mid-space gleaming, 

Who vainly on the pronged Dilemma sought it ! 



>o4: POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 

XII. REFUGE. 

Hapless deer upon the forest floor, 
Has the hunter given thee a wound ? 

Flee, then, swift within the wood's dim core, 
Where the hidden lakelet spreads around, 

That the gentle freshness of its wave 

May thy throbbing wound with coolness lave. 

But man, when thy wounded bosom swells, 

Flee within thy household's inmost shrine, 
Where the purest fount of comfort wells, 

And upon thy mother's heart recline. 
But the mother, ere a long time, dies. 

Has thine own already fallen asleep ? 
Flee, then, where the forest silent lies, 

With the hunted, wounded deer, and weep ! 

XIII. SPRING-GREETING. 

After long frost how breathes the air so mild ! 
Spring violets brings to me a beggar child. 

Sad, that the earliest greeting of the Spring 
A child of misery to me must bring. 

And yet the pledge of earth's sweet loveliness 
Is dearer from the hand of wretchedness. 

So bears to future men our grief or crime 
The vernal greeting of a better time. 



POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 335 

XIV. TO DEATH. 

When once my heart begins to moulder, 

When poesy's audacious flame 
And fires of love already smoulder, 

Then, Death ! in pieces break this frame. 

Not slowly dig, but quickly break it, 

And let thy singer soar away. 
Enrich his life-field not, nor rake it 

With feeling's ashes, Death, I pray ! 

XV. THE CRUCIFIX. 

When man towards heaven holds his trusting face, 
His lifted arms in love outstretching steady 

To draw the world unto his heart's embrace, 
He makes himself for crucifixion ready. 

Such love as this upon the earth is rare ; 

And that the world might lose its image never, 
Mankind, O Jesus ! bound,- with hasty care, 

Thy loving posture to the cross forever. 

xvi. o my mother! 

Within my heart I bear a hidden wound, 
And silently shall bear it till I die ; 

I feel it gnawing, gnawing there profound, 
While heavily the hours of life go by. 



336 POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 

There is but one to whom I might confide 
Without distrust, and freely tell her all, 

Could I my face upon her bosom hide ; 
But she, alas ! is sleeping in her pall. 

mother, come ! If still thy love survives, 
Cannot my tears prevail to draw thee back 

To help thy child, who here in anguish strives, 
With doubt and fear and grief upon the rack ? 

1 long to leave this world of undelight, 

Strip from my soul this fleshly wretchedness. 
O mother, come ! as thou wert wont at night, 
Thy weary child from his sad life undress ! 



PARTINGS AND MEETINGS ON THE JOURNEY OF LIFE. 

Full oft, when starting in life's morning road, 

With fond associates of our youth, 
Gazing on lawns of green with flowers strowed, 

Not on the flints and thorns of truth, 
We take our early playmates by the hand, 

Just where our paths grow strange amain, 
And with more faith than we do understand, 

Utter a cheerful, Meet again ! 

Full oft, when journeying o'er life's noonday road, 
We pine for some companion dear 



POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 337 

Whose voice of love would ease our toilsome load, 

And banish each intruding fear ; 
And when with such we 've travelled through the day, 

We see our paths diverge with pain, 
And clasping hands, beneath the sunset ray, 

We breathe a saddened, Meet again ! 

Full oft, when pausing on life's evening road, 

While shades of night are gathering round, 
All nameless agonies our hearts forebode, 

As sinks in faintness to the ground 
Some fellow-pilgrim, bound to us through years 

By love and trust without a stain ; 
We kneel to bathe the well-known hand in tears, 

And sigh a faltering, Meet again ! 

And O, amidst the disappointments deep 

Of this most cold and selfish world, 
Where treacherous stabs and blights oft make us weep, 

And jeers on gentle hearts are hurled, — 
And O, within this life of sorrows dire, 

Of sundered souls and prayers vain, 
Our yearning hearts must in their grief expire, 

Did we not hope to meet again. 



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